THE  YOUNG 
IN  HEART 


ARTHUR 
STAN  WOOD 
PIER 


LIBRARY 

OF   THE 

University  of  California. 

Class 


^p  9lrtl)ur  ^tanlDOoU  pier 


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THE  YOUNG  IN  HEART 


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THE  YOUNG  IN  HEART 


ARTHUR    STANWOOD   PIER 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  8  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK    MCMVII 


'k 


COPYRIGHT    1907    BY   ARTHUR   STANWOOD   PIER 
ALi    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


Fuhlished  April  rqoj 


CONTENTS 


THE  YOUNG  IN   HEART  , 


II.    LAWN  TENNIS 
III.    WORK  AND   PLAY 


164122 


IV.  THE  SMOKING-ROOM  105 

V.  CYNICISM  139 

VI.  THE  QUIET  MAN  155 

VII.  "IN  SWIMMING"  181 

VIII.  BRAWN  AND  CHARACTER  213 


THE  YOUNG  IN  HEART 


THE  YOUNG  IN  HEART 

Of  all  the  myths  and  legends  which  have 
consoled  or  encouraged  mankind,  that 
which  persisted  longest,  reappearing  at 
intervals  through  many  centuries,  to  be 
relinquished  at  last  with  sad  regret,  was 
the  belief  that  somewhere  was  to  be  found 
an  elixir  of  youth.  Some  of  the  more 
socially  disposed  of  the  Grecian  divinities 
were  thought  to  confer  it  upon  their 
earthly  favorites  ;  and  frequently  the  an- 
cient mind  appears  to  have  befogged  it- 
self with  dreams  about  the  rejuvenating 
properties  of  vaguely  situated  rivers  and 
fountains.  Mediaeval  chemists  and  ex- 
plorers alike  made  patient  search  for  this 
elixir,  so  longed  for  by  the  race,  so  hope- 
fully believed  in  ;  the  discovery  of  Amer- 
ica promoted  a  lapsing  credulity.  It  seemed 
that  in  the  New  World,  at  any  rate,  would 
come  to  light  the  admirable  secret  which, 

[3] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

in  spite  of  all  the  poking  and  prod- 
ding, had  never  been  yielded  up  by  the 
Old. 

No  doubt,  the  ill  fate  of  Ponce  de  Leon 
dealt  the  theory  its  death-blow ;  at  least, 
confidence  was  never  again  begotten  of 
credulity.  That  sanguine  adventurer,  at 
the  age  of  sixty,  secured  a  charter  from 
his  government  to  discover  and  settle  the 
island  of  Bimini,  where,  it  had  been  re- 
ported to  him,  the  fountain  of  perpetual 
youth  cast  its  waters  wastefully  upon  the 
earth,  —  with  none  but  ill-natured  savages 
to  bathe  in  it  and  profit  by  it.  Possibly,  in 
making  his  preparations,  he  did  not  suf- 
ficiently consider  how  formidable  might 
be  savages  who  were  fortified  with  per- 
petual youth.  No  sooner  had  he  set  foot 
on  the  island  than  these  inhospitable  and 
virile  natives  routed  his  following,  and 
gave  him  the  wound  from  which  a  short 
time  afterwards  he  died.  Thenceforth 
there  was  no  important  attempt  to  de- 
monstrate the  existence  of  a    fountain  of 

[4] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

youth.    In  another  century  the  belief  had 
faded. 

This  enlightenment  of  the  popular  mind, 
and  this  extinction  of  a  popular  yearning, 
have  freed  many  wailful  and  bemoaning 
voices  that  had  otherwise  been  still,  and 
have  permitted  many  minor  cadences  to 
reach  the  hitherto  oblivious  ear.  So  long 
as  a  fountain  of  youth  was  thought  to  be 
discoverable,  no  Disraeli  arose  to  exclaim, 
*'  Youth  is  a  blunder  ;  "  no  Swinburne 
chanted  drearily,  — 

"  From  too  much  love  of  living, 
From  hope  and  fear  set  free, 
We  thank  with  brief  thanksgiving 

Whatever  gods  may  be, 
That  no  life  lives  forever, 
That  dead  men  rise  up  never. 
That  even  the  weariest  river 
Winds  somewhere  safe  to  sea." 

One  is  bound  to  suspect  that  they  who 
now  hold  the  dismal  view  of  youth  and 
life  would  have  been  the  most  eager  vol- 
unteers to  join   Ponce  de  Leon's  expedi- 

[5] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

tion.  It  is  a  not  wholly  unknown  or  repre- 
hensible habit  to  declare  a  low  estimate 
on  what  is  out  of  reach.  And  it  is  the 
common  failing  of  diffident  humanity  to 
imagine  that  the  attainable  is  out  of  reach. 

Even  nowadays,  when  superstition  has 
hardly  a  rag  left,  every  man  may  be,  if  he 
will,  his  own  Ponce  de  Leon  — and  with 
a  better  prospect  of  success.  For  there 
is  a  fountain  of  youth ;  it  will  be  found 
in  no  undiscovered  country  —  unless  that 
country  is  the  man's  own  heart.  There, 
at  some  time,  it  has  flowed. 

Seven  springs  feed  this  fountain, —  van- 
ity, emulousness,  generosity,  anticipation, 
innocence,  curiosity,  and  faith.  The  first 
early  sentience  of  the  child  is  the  rod  that 
strikes  the  rock  and  releases,  one  after 
another,  these  waters.  Thenceforth  they 
mingle  in  a  clear,  harmonious  stream. 

But  then,  in  some  seismic  convulsion  or 
plague  of  drought,  one  of  these  springs  is 
diminished,  or  extinguished,  or  transformed 
into  a  moody  intermittent   little   geyser. 

[  M 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

Other  shocks  follow,  and  assail  youth  at  its 
remaining  sources.  Sometimes  the  springs 
burst  up,  and  spout  afresh  through  the  crust 
that  has  been  forming  over  them  ;  more 
often  their  outpouring  is  reduced  and  re- 
duced, and  the  fountain  of  youth  gradu- 
ally perishes  away. 

Invariably,  the  first  of  the  springs  to  be 
diminished  or  exhausted,  is  faith.  The  pro- 
gress from  credulous  and  superstitious  child- 
hood to  fearless  and  open-eyed  maturity  is 
marked  by  the  remains  of  defunct  delu- 
sions. Some  of  these  had  been  barely 
warmed  to  life,  and  were  laid  down  with- 
out a  pang ;  but  when  others,  which  had 
been  of  slow  and  tender  incubation,  were 
pronounced  inanimate,  there  was  a  sorrow- 
ing heart  and  childish  tears.  These  inev- 
itable bereavements  do  not  quell  the  en- 
thusiastic spirit;  but  little  by  little,  as  they 
accumulate,  they  shadow  its  joyousness  and 
awaken  distrust  and  suspicion.  We  sacri- 
fice our  delusions  without  much  suffering  ; 
it  is  otherwise  when  we  are  called  on  to 

[7] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

yield  up  our  illusions.  It  caused  me  as  a 
child  no  great  pain  to  find  that  a  man 
could  not  keep  himself  dry  in  a  shower — 
as  one  of  my  fairy  tales  had  it  —  by  whirl- 
ing a  sword  rapidly  about  his  head;  I  had  a 
wooden  sword  of  my  own,  and  when  next 
the  rain  fell  I  made  the  experiment  and 
was  drenched.  Probably  I  had  never  quite 
believed  the  story ;  at  any  rate,  I  was  but 
mildly  disappointed,  and  experienced  no 
such  grief  then  as  befell  me  somewhat  later 
in  the  overthrow  of  my  first  great  illusion. 
To  publish  a  book,  and  thus  amaze  and 
gratify  my  family,  was  my  precocious  aim. 
Finding,  after  various  efforts,  that  I  had  not 
wit  enough  to  make  a  book  of  my  own, 
and  having  studied  Latin  prematurely,  I 
conceived  the  idea  of  writing  out  a  trans- 
lation of  Caesar's  Commentaries.  This 
laborious  task  I  ultimately  accomplished 
—  in  secret,  as  I  supposed  ;  I  covered  some 
seven  hundred  pages  with  large  puerile 
penmanship,  and  rendered  every  ablative 
absolute  with  slavish  fidelity.    When  the 

[8] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

last  word  had  been  written,  and  nothing 
remained  but  to  arrange  for  the  pubhca- 
tion  of  the  work,  I  found  myself  too  ig- 
norant of  business  methods  to  proceed, 
and  I  took  my  father  into  my  confidence. 
His  astonishment  and  his  pride  in  my  mass 
of  manuscript,  the  way  in  which  he  took 
it  up  and  balanced  it  in  his  hands  and 
ejaculated  reverently  over  the  number  of 
pages,  exalted  me  as  if  it  had  been  the 
printed  and  bound  volume  he  was  holding ; 
and  then,  as  considerately  as  possible,  he 
explained  that,  on  account  of  the  number 
who  were  in  the  field  before  me  with 
translations  of  Cassar,  I  could  hardly  hope 
to  find  a  publisher.  I  was  crushed;  but 
my  father  called  in  my  mother,  and  they 
made  me  feel  that  they  appreciated  my 
colossal  achievement,  even  if  the  world  was 
denied  the  opportunity.  That  day  my 
father  invited  me  to  lunch  with  him  at 
the  club,  and  afterwards  took  me  to  a  base- 
ball game.  So  when  my  first  illusion 
broke,  I  was  floated  tenderly  down  to  earth. 

[9] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

But  for  several  years  afterwards  I  would 
occasionally  pull  out  the  drawer  and  look 
at  the  massive  manuscript,  with  a  com- 
passionate sense  that  it  deserved  a  better 
fate. 

In  common  humanity  it  happens  that 
the  illusions  of  children,  when  the  time 
comes  for  removing  them,  are  dealt  with, 
as  was  this  first  one  of  mine,  not  ungently  ; 
the  very  hands  that  plucked  away  the  veil 
are  often  waiting  to  slip  on  another,  al- 
most as  enchanting.  But  the  grievous  days 
approach  when  these  loving  ministrations 
must  fail  us,  when  the  loss  of  illusion  must 
carry  with  it  bitterness  and  humiliation, 
and  when,  saddest  of  all,  the  comforter  may 
no  longer  be  at  hand  to  give  us  the  con- 
solatory luncheon  at  the  club,  to  sit  with 
us  sympathetic  at  the  ball  game. 

When  we  first  cease  to  believe  in  what 
we  see,  credulity  is  passing  ;  when  we  first 
cease  to  believe  in  what  we  imagine,  faith 
is  taking  flight.  Experience  teaches  us 
that  the  strawberries  in  the  bottom  of  the 

[  ^0] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

box  are  smaller  than  those  on  top  ;  but 
our  benevolent  imagination,  loath  to  ac- 
cuse the  berry-man  of  fraud,  reasons  the 
matter  out  thus :  if  he  put  only  the  "  aver- 
age" berries  on  top,  we  would  think  that 
they  were  his  largest,  and  that  what  were 
hidden  must  be  quite  contemptible  ;  in  try- 
ing to  be  candid,  he  would  merely  do  him- 
self an  injustice.  By  this  charitable  argu- 
ment, although  we  are  emancipated  from 
credulity,  we  are  still  linked  to  faith.  But 
if  some  cynic  informs  us  that  our  huckster 
spreads  a  few  fine  big  berries  thinly  over 
the  surface  of  a  mass  of  wretched  little 
ones,  in  order  to  sell  the  little  ones  at  the 
price  asked  for  the  big  — then  our  faith 
follows  hard  after  our  credulity  ;  we  go  to 
another  berry-man,  and  we  go  to  him  with 
suspicion.  Experiences  of  this  character 
tend  to  remove  us  from  the  ranks  of  the 
young  in  heart,  and  to  enroll  us,  it  may  be, 
among  the  men  of  the  world. 

With  faith   depleted,  it  is   pretty  hard 
pumping  for  innocence.    Unless,  like  The- 

[  II  ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

reau,  one  holds  aloof  from  society,  one  can 
hardly  preserve  innocence  undefiled.  The 
simple  ethics  of  one's  early  years  have  to 
give  place  to  a  more  complicated  code,  in 
which  self-interest  and  its  corollary  doc- 
trine, that  **  charity  begins  at  home,"  are 
the  chief  gospels.  **  All  the  moraUty  I 
have,"  says  one,  ''is  never  to  do  any- 
thing which  could  wound  those  I  love, 
could  they  know  of  it,  and  always  to  do 
everything  that  might  make  them  happy." 
That  is  a  tolerably  high  ideal  of  conduct 
to  maintain,  yet  it  may  not  require  inno- 
cence—  a  state  of  mind  unspotted  from 
the  world.  Always  will  innocence  have 
charms, —  especially  for  the  predatory, — 
but  it  is  not  a  useful  virtue,  and  it  is  apt 
to  promote  disadvantageous  associations  in 
business.  Most  young  men  make  haste  to 
be  rid  of  it,  — and  it  can  be  eliminated 
without  any  serious  loss  of  youth. 

Lest  these  sentiments  appear  in  tend- 
ency subversive  of  accepted  morality,  let 
me  explain  that  the  term  innocence  is  here 

[  ^2  ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

used  merely  to  define  that  condition  which 
precedes  in  the  individual  the  development 
of  guile.  The  quite  guileless  person  is  the 
only  innocent  person,  for  he  alone  does  not 
attempt  to  make  use  of  others  bv  veiled 
and  indirect  methods.  And  the  innocence 
which  precludes  such  attempts  necessarily 
ceases  to  exist  after  the  first  hard  blows  at 
faith. 

Yet  some  persons  never  accustom  them- 
selves comfortably  to  the  conventional  de- 
fensive methods  of  the  world.  Their  un- 
skilful subtleties  are  readily  penetrated ; 
they  accept  exposure  as  a  humorous  Neme- 
sis, and  seem  undisturbed  when  they  fail  to 
carry  off  their  small  hypocrisies.  With  so 
light  a  regard  for  excellence  in  the  prac- 
tice of  this  art,  they  exhibit  no  acuteness 
in  detecting  the  subtlety  of  other  practi- 
tioners. Through  all  the  shocks  to  faith 
which  they  endure,  they  never  lose  their 
willingness,  their  insatiate  eagerness,  to 
lend  a  trusting  ear.  They  throw  the  door 
wide  open,   and   mean    to   look   over  the 

[  '3  ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

guests  at  leisure.  They  are  thus  hospi- 
table, because  with  a  generous  disposition 
they  unite  a  curiosity  which  does  not  re- 
sort to  critical  scrutiny,  and  an  open-eyed 
habit  of  anticipation  which  finds  in  every 
one  and  everything  some  agreeable  matter 
for  conjecture  or  surprise. 

Generosity,  curiosity,  anticipation  —  on 
the  persistence  of  these  depends  the  per- 
sistence of  youth.  Vanity  and  emulous- 
ness,  though  essential  in  some  degree  to 
youth,  are  not  exclusively  its  attributes  ; 
they  may  thrive  in  the  very  oldest  hearts. 
They  may  dwindle  from  the  torrent  to  the 
trickle,  even  like  faith,  and  it  will  not  so 
much  matter;  but  when  a  man  ceases  to 
be  generous  and  to  be  curious,  and  when 
he  is  no  longer  lured  on  and  on  by  antici- 
pation, he  ceases  to  be  young. 

He  may  have  made  the  most  of  his 
opportunities,  and  yet  arrive  at  this  condi- 
tion. He  may  even  arrive  at  it  by  delib- 
erate striving  and  intention,  as  others  are 
brought  to  it  by  the  natural   urging  of 

[  H] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

temperament.  For  there  are  two  ideals 
between  which  one  may  choose,  —  that  of 
being  always  young  in  heart,  and  that 
of  becoming  as  soon  as  possible  a  man  — 
or  woman  —  of  the  world. 

Many  men  —  and  perhaps  all  women 
—  of  the  world  will  resent  as  untrue  and 
injurious  the  assertion  that  they  are  not 
young  in  heart.  So  much  of  their  effort 
is  given  to  maintaining  the  atmosphere 
of  youth,  that  they  may  well  be  irritated 
by  a  criticism  implying  that,  with  some 
conspicuous  exceptions,  they  have  lost  the 
spirit.  No  one  so  much  as  the  man  of  the 
world  —  unless  it  is  the  woman — covets 
certain  characteristics  of  youth,  clings  to 
them  so  tenaciously,  —  the  vivacity,  the 
appearance,  the  outward  expression.  But 
these  are  not  fundamental  qualities ;  and 
the  very  attributes  which  keep  youth  glow- 
ing in  the  heart  as  well  as  shining  on  the 
surface,  most  men  and  women  of  the  world 
contemn .  Thev  are  not  necessarily  worldly 
men  and  women,  but  they  are  of  necessity 

[  IS] 


THE   YOUNG    IN    HEART 

sophisticated ;  and  that  the  young  in  heart 
may  not  be.  For  here  is  the  paradox  of 
youth  :  it  is  the  time  when  one  is  learn- 
ing, when  one  goes  on  eagerly  learning  ; 
but  as  soon  as  one  begins  to  take  the  les- 
sons to  heart,  the  heart  is  beginning  to  grow 
old.  The  young  do  not  profit  by  expe- 
rience :  they  seek  it ;  they  are  unhappy 
unless  they  are  in  the  midst  of  it ;  and 
emerging  from  it,  they  at  once  go  caracol- 
ing off  in  search  of  more.  If  it  has  been 
a  pleasant  lesson,  they  say  blithely,  *'  An- 
other good  time  salted  down  and  put  away 
where  the  devil  can't  get  at  it ;  "  if  it  has 
been  a  harsh  one,  they  dash  the  tears  from 
their  eyes,  clap  spurs  to  their  beaten  hope, 
and  ride  away  singing  —  and  never  mind 
if  the  voice  breaks  ;  no  one  will  be  there 
to  hear.  The  lure  of  the  freedom  and  the 
beauty  and  the  essential  goodness  of  life 
ever  leads  them  on,  and  the  men  and 
women  of  the  world  smile  at  them  kindly 
and  complacently. 

They  are  bunglers ;    they  gape  open- 

[  '6] 


THE   YOUNG    IN    HEART 

mouthed  when  it  would  be  discreet  to  drop 
eyelids  and  pass  on  ;  they  repeatedly  justify 
the  condescension  with  which  those  who 
have  profited  by  experience  regard  them : 
yet  in  spite  of  this  they  are  lovable,  as  no 
men  of  the  world,  as  few  women  of  the 
world,  ever  are.  Their  indiscretions,  their 
mistaken  enthusiasms,  their  awkwardnesses 
that  hurt  none  but  themselves,  their  in- 
genuous interest  in  life  and  in  persons, 
win  the  affection  —  and  one's  whole  affec- 
tion can  never  be  engaged  by  those  at 
whom  one  may  not  sometimes  humor- 
ously smile.  The  young  in  years  respond 
to  the  young  in  heart,  as  they  do  not  to  the 
men  of  the  world,  —  with  whom  usually 
they  sit  stiff,  overawed,  and  constrained. 
Indeed,  it  is  a  weakness  that  youth  never 
quite  outgrows,  to  be  always  somewhat 
overcome  in  the  presence  of  those  who 
wear  the  air  of  large  and  opulent  experi- 
ence, or  of  those  who  are  distinguished  for 
noteworthy  accomplishment.  With  all  its 
superficial  vanity  and  exuberant  shouting, 

[  17  ] 


THE   YOUNG    IN    HEART 

youth  is  at  bottom  humble-minded  and 
ready  to  have  its  gaze  directed  upward.  It 
does  not  minimize  or  depreciate;  it  has 
a  catholic  respect  for  achievement;  it  is 
aware  of  its  own  limited  and  imperfect 
fulfilment  of  its  tasks:  and  yet,  even  to 
the  last,  it  strives  with  gallant  confidence. 
But,  said  Audrey,  **  I  hope  it  is  no  dis- 
honest desire  to  desire  to  be  a  woman  of 
the  world."  Surely  not;  in  denying  to  those 
who  are  of  the  world  certain  engaging 
traits  of  the  young  in  heart,  one  must 
allow  that  they  have  their  special  merits 
and  virtues.  Perhaps  they  inspire  a  deeper 
confidence,  if  not  so  warm  a  love.  Equal 
to  the  occasion,  serene,  unmoved  by  ex- 
travagant enthusiasm,  discreetly  refraining 
from  violent  expressions  of  prejudice  and 
hate,  they  contribute  a  balance  and  a  cool 
temper  to  life,  and  are  worthy  of  the  ad- 
miration bestowed  on  them  by  the  young. 
They  are  the  conservatives  ;  the  young  in 
heart  are  the  radicals.  They  concern  them- 
selves with  securing  a  more  comfortable 

[18] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

adjustment  of  existing  forces;  the  young 
in  heart  are  absorbed  in  creating  new  ex- 
plosives. In  law,  diplomacy,  and  statecraft, 
we  profit  by  the  labors  of  the  men  of  the 
world  ;  in  literature,  painting,  and  explora- 
tion, we  are  debtors  to  the  young  in  heart. 
Indeed,  the  pursuits  in  which  men  of  the 
world  show  at  their  best  are  those  in 
which  the  spirit  of  youth  must  inevitably 
droop.  It  will  resist  most  hardily  disap- 
pointment, failure,  and  sorrow;  but  in 
the  blandly  successful  life  it  does  not 
thrive.  Enveloped  in  artifice  and  conven- 
tion, breathing  the  atmosphere  of  tradition, 
and  oppressed  by  the  crowding  demands 
of  complicated  petty  problems,  it  is  slowly 
stifled  ;  it  has  not  scope  in  which  it  may 
buoyantly  expand.  Youth  grows  strong 
with  privation,  and  is  invalided  on  a  sur- 
feit. The  man  of  the  world  has  experi- 
enced a  surfeit,  and,  if  he  is  a  successful 
man  of  the  world,  continues  to  experience 
it.  His  anticipations  are  moderate,  his  en- 
thusiasms are  restrained.    But  ardent,  crav- 

[  19] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

ing  youth,  which,  whatever  its  achieve- 
ment, rejoices  in  it  only  for  a  moment  and 
then,  still  panting  from  the  effort,  turns 
away  forever  and  moves  toward  a  future 
attainment  that  shall  indeed  be  success  — 
that  is  the  spirit  that  expires  in  a  w^orld 
of  equable  and  comfortable  adjustment 
and  of  nice  balancings.    Browning's  lines, 

"  Grow  old  along  with  me, 
The  best  is  yet  to  be, 
The  last  of  life   for  which  the  first  was  made," 

translated  into  our  common  idiom,  must 
mean,  "Keep  young  along  with  me," — 
for  only  so  may  the  reader  share  with  the 
poet  that  always  bright  and  eager  anticipa- 
tion of  unquenchable  youth. 

It  is  true  that  youth  is  given  to  ex- 
cesses ;  no  matter  what  a  man's  years,  if 
he  have  a  young  heart,  it  will  always  be 
more  urgent  and  compelling  than  his 
elderly  head.  Always  he  will  lean  towards 
extravagance  in  admiration,  and  splendor 
in  indignation.    Only  the  young  are  lov- 

[  ^o  ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

ers  ;  only  the  young  can  hate.  Here,  taken 
from  Mr.  Chesterton's  admirable  bio- 
graphy, is  an  account  of  Browning's  last 
days  —  cited  because  it  seems  so  well  to 
illustrate  the  survival  in  age  of  the  spirit 
of  youth. 

^*  During  his  last  Italian  period  he  seems 
to  have  fallen  back  on  very  ultimate  sim- 
plicities, chiefly  a  mere  staring  at  nature. 
The  family  with  whom  he  lived  kept  a 
fox  cub,  and  Browning  would  spend  hours 
with  it,  watching  its  grotesque  ways ;  when 
it  escaped,  he  was  characteristically  enough 
delighted.  The  old  man  could  be  seen  con- 
tinually in  the  lanes  round  Asolo,  peering 
into  hedges  and  whistling  for  the  lizards. 

*'  This  serene  and  pastoral  decline,  surely 
the  mildest  of  slopes  into  death,  was  sud- 
denly diversified  by  a  flash  of  something 
lying  far  below.  Browning's  eye  fell  upon 
a  passage  written  by  the  distinguished  Ed- 
ward Fitzgerald,  who  had  been  dead  for 
many  years,  in  which  Fitzgerald  spoke  in 
an  uncomplimentary  manner  of  Elizabeth 

[    21    ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

Barrett  Browning.  Browning  immediately 
wrote  the '  Lines  to  Edward  Fitzgerald,'  and 
set  the  whole  literary  world  in  an  uproar. 
The  lines  w^ere  bitter  and  excessive  to  have 
been  written  against  any  man,  especially 
bitter  and  excessive  to  have  been  written 
against  a  man  who  was  not  alive  to  reply. 
And  yet,  when  all  is  said,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  feel  a  certain  dark  and  indescribable 
pleasure  in  this  last  burst  of  the  old  barbaric 
energy.  The  mountain  had  been  tilled  and 
forested,  and  laid  out  in  gardens  to  the  sum- 
mit ;  but  for  one  last  night  it  had  proved 
itself  once  more  a  volcano,  and  had  lit  up 
all  the  plains  with  its  forgotten  fire.  And 
the  blow,  savage  as  it  was,  was  dealt  for 
that  great  central  sanctity,  —  the  story  of  a 
man's  youth.  All  that  the  old  man  would 
say  in  reply  to  every  view  of  the  question 
was,  '  I  felt  as  if  she  had  died  yesterday.'  " 

After  all,  the  excessive  persons  are  the 
expressive  persons ;  emotion  is  essential  to 
expression,  and  the  habit  of  expression 
promotes  and  intensifies  emotion.    There- 

[22] 


THE   YOUNG    IN    HEART 

fore  is  expression  the  better  part  of  life ; 
it  is  the  great  generator  of  human  sym- 
pathy. The  old-hearted,  outworn  persons 
of  the  world  are  those  who  have  the  most 
persistent  craving  for  fresh  sensations,  fresh 
impressions,  and  who,  from  laziness,  selfish- 
ness, or  diffidence,  think  it  not  worth  while 
to  communicate  what  is  already  theirs,  and 
so  suffer  it  to  perish  within  them. 

"  I  loafe  and  invite  my  soul," 

cried  Whitman  ;  if  he  had  done  only  that, 
he  would  never  have  derived  from  life  the 
enjoyment  which  made  him  a  prophet. 
In  the  industry  wherewith  he  recorded  and 
interpreted  those  periods  of  loafing,  rather 
than  in  his  indolent  baskings,  did  he  ex- 
hibit his  essential  youthfulness.  It  is  the 
lazy,  diffident  selfishness  of  age  that  shrinks 
from  revivifying  and  interpreting  experi- 
ence, so  that  it  shall  please  and  interest  an- 
other ;  it  is  the  generosity  of  youth  that  is 
the  primal  impulse  to  expression. 

And  with  this  generosity  a  certain  gal- 

[23] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

lantry  is  required.  The  faculty  of  expres- 
sion demands  the  best  that  vitality  can  give. 
It  calls  for  energy  when  one's  mood  may 
be  relaxed,  for  sustained  vigor  and  cheer- 
fulness and  an  undaunted  spirit  in  adver- 
sity. We  have  looked  upon  Browning  as 
an  exemplar  in  his  old  age  of  the  exces- 
siveness  of  youth  ;  here  let  a  nameless  and 
far  humbler  writer  serve  to  illustrate  for  us 
the  gallantry  of  the  young  in  heart.  To  an 
editor  who  knew  him  only  through  his 
work  he  sent  a  story,  and  with  the  story 
this  letter:  "Please  pardon  a  personal  note. 
Almost  to  a  certainty,  before  I  can  hear 
from  you  about  the  inclosed  manuscript, 
I  shall  have  passed  beyond  this  life.  Will 
you,  therefore,  in  case  the  story  is  avail- 
able, make  the  check  out  to  my  wife }  — 
and  that  would  be  all  right  if  I  were  still 
here.  Thank  you  for  your  past  kindnesses ; 
good-by."  It  was  a  story  of  brave  adven- 
ture by  ice  and  sea,  written  in  a  brave 
spirit.  It  was  indomitable  youth  that  faced 
clear   sighted    the    imminent   death,    and 

[   24] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

while  awaiting  it  occupied  itself  —  urged 
on,  no  doubt,  by  unselfish  thought  of 
another  —  with  fashioning  tales  of  manly- 
courage  and  activity.  One  imagines  the 
man  of  the  world  facing  death  with  equal 
fortitude,  setting  his  house  in  order  and  pre- 
paring for  the  end  with  serenity  ;  one  does 
not  so  readily  imagine  him  engaging  to  the 
end  in  such  gay  and  ardent  accomplishment. 
It  has  been  too  foreign  to  him  through  his 
life. 

The  sorrowful  reflection  is  that  the  vast 
multitude  of  human  beings  are  neither 
young  in  heart  nor  men  —  or  women  —  of 
the  world.  The  lives  of  most  people  are 
necessarily  so  circumscribed  that  to  be  men 
of  the  world  is  not  their  aim,  because  it 
hardly  comes  within  their  conception  ;  but 
there  are  few  w^ho  have  not  at  some  time 
experienced  youth,  however  prematurely 
the  spirit  of  it  may  have  withered.  Those 
who  could  not  be  of  the  world,  yet  might 
be  young,  have  made  craven  surrender  of 
their  youth  in  the  struggle  with  exacting 

[25  ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN   HEART 

care  or  in  the  preoccupations  of  responsi- 
bility. In  their  annual  vacations,  respon- 
sibility or  grinding  care  allows  them  a 
brief  reunion  with  the  prisoner  —  whose 
face  now  they  hardly  know  ;  then  back 
into  the  cell  goes  youth,  and  the  key  is 
turned  for  another  year.  Can  youth  never 
be  aided  to  elude  the  jailer  and  escape  to 
freedom  ?  It  is  worth  a  man's  while  to 
plot  and  sacrifice  for  this  ;  for  if  he  liber- 
ates and  recovers  his  youth,  he  will  enter 
upon  the  last  stage  of  his  journey  march- 
ing as  march  the  veterans  when  passing  in 
review.  That  such  daring  rescues  are  pos- 
sible, we  know  ;  we  sometimes  see  men 
whose  old  age  blossoms  gayly,  after  years 
of  barrenness  ;  we  see  men  who,  after  a 
lifetime  of  effort,  have  cleared  about  them 
a  space  where  the  sunlight  may  shine. 
How  nowadays  shall  Ponce  de  Leon  equip 
himself  for  his  quest  r 

When  it  is  said  of  a  man  that  he  has  no 
outside  interests,  the  phrase  implies  that  he 
is  self-centred,  self-absorbed.     He  has  put 

[  26] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

away  childish  things,  and  he  has  put  away 
youth  also.  In  no  objective  sense  has  he 
an  interest  in  life  ;  he  has  an  interest  only 
in  his  own  life,  and  the  attentiveness  and 
intensity  of  this  interest  are  painful.  No 
man  can  be  really  young  who  has  lost 
what  may  be  called  the  sense  of  external- 
ity, who  cannot  at  the  moment  of  un- 
healthy tension  turn  his  mind  to  playing 
with  some  opportune  irrelevancy  or  direct 
his  eye  to  some  incongruous  scene,  —  who 
cannot,  in  other  words,  allow  himself  a 
certain  humorous  indulgence.  Humor  is 
the  shield  of  the  young  in  heart,  as  wit 
is  the  weapon  of  the  man  of  the  world. 

This  humorous  indulgence  or  preoccupa- 
tion with  the  irrelevancy  that  brings  relief 
is  often  exasperating  in  those  of  immature 
years,  and  is  then  designated  irresponsibil- 
ity. Later  in  life,  when  a  man  has  become 
too  subdued  to  his  task  or  too  immersed  in 
his  own  personal  ambitions  to  be  an  orna- 
ment of  society,  his  occasional  return  to 
irresponsibility  would  be  welcomed.   And 

[  27  ] 


THE   YOUNG    IN    HEART 

it  is  by  relaxing  in  this  manner,  by  "  lim- 
bering up,"  by  admitting  inconsequence 
to  an  honorable  place  beside  the  haughty 
and  firm  figure  of  absolute  conclusiveness, 
that  senile  decay  of  the  heart  may  be  ar- 
rested and  youth  be  restored  to  lack-lustre 
eyes.  No  treason  to  the  essential  respon- 
sibilities is  involved,  no  demoralized  con- 
duct, no  neglect  even  of  the  most  petty 
minutiae.  All  that  is  required  is  a  whim- 
sical attitude  of  mind,  and  the  appropria- 
tion of  odd  moments  to  project  upon  the 
fancy  the  irresponsible  flight  that  may 
never  be  realized.  For  example,  there  is 
a  certain  slave  of  routine,  who  is  in  the 
habit  of  cheering  himself  with  imaginary 
excursions.  **  I  think,"  he  says,  **  I  will 
not  go  to  the  office  to-day.  Instead,  I 
will  buy  a  ticket  and  go  South.  Then 
I  will  telegraph  the  chief,  *  Off  for  six 
months.  Do  as  you  think  best.*  What 
do  you  think  he  '11  do  ? "  And  thus  he 
whistles  himself  to  his  work  and  cheers  his 
meticulous  way. 

[  28  ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

It  is  unquestionably  true  that  a  life  which 
has  been  devoted  to  narrow  personal  in- 
terests, and  which  was  never  much  gifted 
with  humor  or  fancy,  cannot  be  quite  re- 
juvenated. But  some  spark  of  youth  has 
been  rekindled  if  the  man,  though  unre- 
sponsive to  all  that  lies  about  him,  acquires 
an  interest  in  playing  a  part  as  well  as  in 
plodding  forward  to  his  little  goal.  A 
sculptor  who  was  working  upon  a  statue 
of  Lincoln  had  a  suit  of  clothes  made,  that 
should  be  the  counterpart  of  those  worn 
by  the  President.  When  they  came  from 
the  tailor,  freshly  folded  and  creased,  the 
sculptor  sought  for  some  one  who  might 
wear  them  and  give  them  the  proper  sem- 
blance of  use  ;  and  he  found  this  man  in 
an  old  farmer  of  the  neighborhood.  The 
farmer  undertook  the  task  for  a  considera- 
tion, and  daily  paraded  about  the  country- 
side in  the  clothes  that  Lincoln  might 
have  worn.  And  gradually  these  garments 
clothed  him  with  a  new  dignity ;  they 
invested  him  with  an  interest  in  Lincoln's 

[  ^9  ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

personality;  he  studied  Lincoln's  life  and 
tried  to  conform  his  personal  appearance 
more  nearly  to  Lincoln's, —  tried  gradually 
to  make  Lincoln  the  standard  in  his  speech, 
his  thought,  his  acts ;  and  from  wear- 
ing the  clothes  in  fulfilment  of  a  contract, 
continued  to  wear  them  as  the  manifesta- 
tion of  his  heart's  desire,  fondly  imagin- 
ing himself,  not  Lincoln  indeed,  yet  in 
some  remote  way  Lincoln's  kindred  spirit. 
There  was  something  so  innocent,  so  naive 
in  this  impersonation,  something  so  mod- 
est, too,  that  it  evoked  kindliness  rather 
than  ridicule ;  and  as  it  certainly  made 
the  old  man's  life  more  full  and  interest- 
ing to  himself,  so  also  did  it  enlarge  the 
human  understanding  and  sympathy  of  his 
neighbors. 

To  every  man  who  has  labored  ambi- 
tiously and  long,  there  must  come  a  time 
when  he  accepts  the  truth  of  Stevenson's 
words,  **  Whatever  else  we  are  intended 
to  do,  we  are  not  intended  to  succeed; 
failure  is  the  fate  allotted."    The  convic- 

[  30] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

tion  need  not  affect  a  man's  purpose  or 
paralyze  his  efforts.  But  when  it  is  re- 
luctantly admitted,  then  is  the  time  for 
him  to  discover  that  whatever  disappoint- 
ments await  him  at  the  end  of  the  long 
road,  at  the  goal  towards  which  he  had  so 
steadfastly  set  his  eyes,  there  are  compen- 
sations lying  for  him  on  either  hand.  If 
he  cannot  discover  this  and  is  one  of  those 
who  never  had  youth  in  their  hearts,  he 
will  compress  his  lips  more  sternly,  more 
obstinately,  and  in  sullen  rebellion  con- 
tinue on  his  way.  Him  we  may  respect, 
but  he  does  not  have  our  love.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  he  says  to  himself,  "  Well, 
I  can't  get  what  I  thought  and  hoped,  but 
there's  something  ahead  that  perhaps  I  can 
have,  and  I  mean  to  keep  on,  —  why,  hello  ! 

—  the  road  's  a  good  deal  more  pleasant 
than  I  thought  it ;  of  course  I  '11  keep  on !  " 

—  when  a  man  takes  his  disappointment 
so,  and  after  the  first  dejection  of  weariness 
looks  up  from  his  resting  place  and  smiles 
to  see  the  buttercups  brightening  themea- 

[31  ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

dows  —  we  respect  him  and  love  him  also. 
He  is  coming  into  happiness  when  he  thus 
recovers  his  youth. 

The  young  in  heart  are  happy — and 
what  is  more  important,  they  contribute 
unawares  to  the  happiness  of  others.  They 
may  not  be  so  ''  interesting"  as  the  tragic 
figures  of  life,  or  even  as  the  morbid  and 
melancholy  ;  they  do  not  present  so  many 
points  of  view  from  which  to  be  studied, 
as  they  who  are  of  the  world  ;  but  they 
diffuse,  w^herever  they  are,  a  warmth  and 
light  of  happiness.  Men  and  women  of 
the  world  have  their  mission  of  dissemi- 
nating happiness  also,  and  worthily  per- 
form it;  yet  the  happiness  within  their  gift 
is  of  a  less  elemental  and  pervasive  kind. 
That  which  youth  scatters  so  freely  is 
of  the  spirit ;  that  which  emanates  from 
the  world  requires  for  its  appreciation  a 
certain  discriminating  intelligence.  The 
communication  from  youth  is  electric 
and  instant,  from  the  people  of  the  world 
gradual  and  deliberate. 

[  32  ] 


THE    YOUNG    IN    HEART 

Yet  at  the  last,  one  must  hesitate  to  ex- 
clude the  spirit  of  youth  entirely  from  men 
and  women  of  the  world.  It  is  surely  true 
that  they  who  are  and  who  remain  most 
thoroughly  young  in  heart  are  untouched 
by  sophistication,  and  that  in  those  who  are 
most  perfectly  of  the  world  there  is  left 
no  illusion  of  youth.  These  two  extremes 
represent,  the  one,  the  most  gifted,  the 
other,  the  most  highly  developed  of  the 
human  race.  But  there  are  a  few  —  es- 
pecially among  women  —  in  whom  there 
is  even  to  the  end  a  fine  balance  between 
youth  and  sophistication  preserved,  a  few 
who  to  the  freshness  of  enthusiasm  and 
illusion  unite  the  tact  and  grace  that  grow 
with  experience  and  the  serenity  that  has 
succeeded  faith.  These  gentle  and  sweet 
spirits,  touched  by  the  knowledge  of  the 
world,  are  yet  more  infallibly  convinced  of 
its  goodness,  and  bear  unconsciously  within 
their  lives  the  vision  of  two  ideals. 


II 

LAWN   TENNIS 


LAWN   TENNIS 

There  will  probably  be  no  quarrel  with 
the  statement  that  the  value  of  any  out- 
door game  is  measured,  not  so  much  by  the 
physical  exercise  it  necessitates,  as  by  the 
satisfaction  and  outlet  it  gives  to  the  spirit 
of  combat  that  troubles  us.  Those  in 
search  of  exercise  for  its  own  sake,  desirous 
of  enlarging  their  muscles,  expanding  their 
chests,  and  improving  their  state  of  health, 
will  be  better  rewarded  by  devoting  them- 
selves to  calisthenics  and  gymnastics,  to 
swimming  or  riding,  than  by  the  enthusi- 
astic pursuit  of  any  game.  The  symmet- 
rical development  of  the  body  is  not  the 
usual  result  of  games,  any  more  than  it  is 
their  primary  object ;  and  it  need  not  dis- 
parage their  value  to  make  this  admission 
at  the  outset.  It  is,  however,  an  admirable 
quality  which  they  all  possess  that  they 
call  for  muscular  activity  in  some  form  or 

[  37  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

other,  and  that  they  cause  it  to  be  exer- 
cised with  zest  and  enjoyment  instead  of 
as  an  irksome  duty  that  one  owes  to  one's 
person.  And  therefore,  in  estimating  the 
value  of  a  game,  we  cannot  quite  leave  out 
of  account  the  possibilities  it  affords  for 
exercise  ;  supposing  that  in  other  respects 
there  were  equality,  that  game  would  be 
the  best  which  called  into  play  the  freest 
use  of  the  body. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  no  equality 
among  games  ;  they  do  not  all  have  the 
same  effect  on  the  character,  they  do  not 
satisfy  quite  the  same  emotions  or  suit 
equally  all  temperaments,  as  is  evident 
when  one  considers  that  different  games 
appeal  to  different  men.  Yet  in  them  all, 
modulated  to  various  degrees  of  youth  or 
age,  strength  or  weakness,  it  is  the  element 
of  contest  that  supplies  the  interest  and 
performs  the  greatest  service  to  the  players. 
And  that  game  which  on  the  whole  best 
satisfies  the  contentious  spirit  may  be  said 
to  fulfil  most  completely  its  purpose. 

[  38  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

I  start  with  the  proposition  that  this 
game  is  lawn  tennis.  I  am  not  indifferent 
to  the  merits  of  golf,  baseball,  football, 
or  any  other  outdoor  game,  but  which  of 
these  demands  of  its  e^cer^i  participant  the 
direct,  constant,  and  active  opposition  of 
tennis?  **  Football,"  you  say  at  once; 
well,  perhaps.  Shall  I  seem  to  evade  the 
issue  if  I  submit  the  point  that  football  in 
its  most  important  manifestations  is  now 
a  spectacle  rather  than  a  game,  that  ex- 
cept among  schoolboys  it  is  played  not  so 
much  for  fun  as  for  a  certain  glory,  that 
it  is  for  us,  as  the  gladiatorial  combats  were 
for  the  Romans,  as  the  bullfight  is  for  the 
people  of  Spain  and  Mexico,  an  amuse- 
ment for  the  spectators  rather  than  a  re- 
creation for  the  participants  ?  I  have  often 
been  struck  bv  the  satisfaction  of  college 
players  when  the  season  closes,  and  by  their 
readiness  after  they  leave  college  to  drop 
football  entirely.  The  game  which  so 
many  are  glad  to  have  done  with  and 
which  requires  sacrifices  that  men  beyond 

[  39  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

a  certain  age  are  unwilling  to  make,  does 
not  serve  most  completely  the  purpose  of 
a  game. 

In  baseball  the  nine  players  on  each 
team  are  not  all  simultaneously  and  con- 
stantly in  action.  If  it  is  a  "  pitchers'  bat- 
tle," the  three  outfielders  have  a  dull  time 
of  it,  and  the  team  at  bat  have  long  idle 
periods.  It  is  a  good  game,  it  is  the  na- 
tional game,  yet  one  would  hesitate  to  say 
that  it  meets  more  fully  than  any  other 
the  requirements. 

In  golf  you  can  do  nothing  to  harass 
your  antagonist,  outmanoeuvre  him,  check 
him  when  he  is  winning,  or  lure  him  into 
pitfalls ;  you  can  strive  to  improve  your 
own  play,  you  cannot  hamper  his.  There 
is  no  need  of  quick  decision,  there  is  no 
opportunity  for  strategy,  the  element  of 
direct,  aggressive  opposition  is  lacking; 
therefore  golf  does  not  best  fulfil  the  pur- 
pose of  a  game. 

Hockey  deserves  wider  and  more  enthu- 
siastic recognition  than  it  has  yet  won ;  in 

[  40  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

its  swift,  unceasing  action  and  its  constant 
conflict,  it  comes  near  being  an  ideal  game. 
But  it  is  hardly  universal  enough ;  on 
each  side  there  is  one  player  condemned 
to  a  post  of  responsible  idleness,  which  is 
only  now  and  then  enlivened  by  brief  flur- 
ries. While  the  others  are  racing  back  and 
forth  on  the  ice,  the  goal-keeper  stands 
alone,  freezing  his  toes.  And  because  of 
this  melancholy  adjunct,  because  it  does 
not  permit  to  all  its  players  an  equal  de- 
gree of  activity  and  opposition,  one  must 
regretfully  deny  to  hockey  the  palm.  Yet 
there  need  never  be  any  rivalry  betw  een 
tennis  and  hockey ;  the  conditions  that 
make  possible  the  one  forbid  the  other. 

Now  let  us  examine  the  case  for  tennis. 
That  it  is  entitled  to  the  place  of  suprem- 
acy among  games  seems  to  me  no  unrea- 
sonable claim. 

First  of  all  and  most  important :  w^hen 
you  are  playing  tennis,  w^hether  in  singles 
or  doubles,  it  is  always  you  and  your  op- 
ponent.   You  are  not   looking  on,  except 

[41  ] 


LAWN   TENNIS 

for  the  briefest  moment ;  you  are  not  get- 
ting any  more  rest  than  you  wish,  you 
are  more  often  not  having  as  much  as 
you  would  like.  From  the  first  stroke  of 
the  game  to  the  last,  you  are  in  constant 
yet  always  changing  opposition  to  another 
player.  Even  in  the  doubles  on  the  strokes 
that  are  your  partner's,  you  are  not  a  mere 
spectator  ;  you  are  running  backward,  for- 
ward, keeping  pace  with  him,  seeking  the 
position  in  which  the  next  ball  may  be 
most  advantageously  received.  Your  de- 
cision must  be  instant ;  in  the  fraction 
'  of  a  second  you  determine  whether  you 
shall  drive  the  ball  or  toss  it  into  the  air, 
place  it  on  the  left  or  on  the  right,  rush 
to  the  net  or  run  back  ;  you  must  have 
an  instinctive  knowledge  of  what  your 
opponent  expects  you  to  do  and  then,  if 
possible,  do  something  else.  Once  you 
have  succeeded  in  outwitting  him,  the  tri- 
umph is  all  yours ;  you  divide  the  honors 
with  no  one.  Tennis  more  than  any  other 
game  has  the  qualities  that  gave  the  duel  its 

[  42  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

fascination  ;  it  is  all  eager  and  alive,  two 
men  at  close  quarters,  feinting,  parrying, 
thrusting,  both  alert  for  an  opening  to 
give  the  final  coup  de  grace. 

Call  to  mind  some  long  rally  that  you 
have  had  ;  remember  how  on  one  occa- 
sion when  your  opponent  was  playing  deep 
in  the  court,  you  drew  him  to  the  net  by 
a  ball  chopped  skilfully  just  over  it;  how 
he  returned  the  stroke,  and  how  you  next 
shot  the  ball  down  the  side  line,  thinking 
to  pass  him.  But  he  had  anticipated  the 
attempt  and  volleyed  cleverly  ;  then,  in- 
stead of  trying  the  cross-court  shot  that  he 
was  waiting  for,  you  tossed  the  ball  high 
over  his  head,  and  while  he  spun  round  and 
raced  for  it  you  trotted  to  the  net,  prepared 
to  "kill"  the  lob  that  he  should  send  in 
return.  And  just  as  you  had  hoped,  it  was 
a  short  lob  ;  but  instead  of  killing  it,  you 
decided  it  would  be  more  fun  to  keep  him 
running,  and  you  turned  the  ball  over  into 
the  farther  corner  of  his  court.  He  w^ent 
after  it  at  full  speed  and  lobbed  again,  — 

[43  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

it  was  all  he  could  do,  poor  fellow,  —  and 
again  the  ball  fell  short,  again  you  had  him 
at  your  mercy.  Nor  did  you  smash  the 
ball  this  time ;  instead,  you  turned  it  off 
slowly  into  the  other  corner.  He  sprinted 
hard  and  reached  it,  only  to  pop  it  up 
easily  once  more.  And  now  you  gathered 
yourself;  you  saw  out  of  the  tail  of  your 
eye  that  he  had  turned  and  had  already 
started  back  desperately  toward  the  far- 
ther corner  ;  and  you  landed  on  that  ball 
with  all  your  might,  beat  it  to  the  earth, 
and  sent  it  bounding  straight  at  the  place  he 
was  leaving.  He  made  a  miserable,  futile 
effort  to  right  himself  and  shift  his  racket ; 
then  you  saw  him  walk  slowly  after  the 
ball,  with  his  head  drooping  and  his  shoul- 
ders heaving  up  about  his  ears,  and  you 
chuckled  to  yourself  with  huge  approval 
of  your  own  astute  play,  —  *'That  got  his 
wind,  I  guess." 

There  is  a  human  amusement  in  making 
your  antagonist  run  back  and  forth  thus 
earnestly  and  desperately ;   but  one  has  a 

[44] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

more  exalted  satisfaction  in  placing  a  shot 
so  sudden,  swift,  and  accurate  that  the 
opposing  player  has  not  time  to  move. 
Teasing  your  man,  you  feel  your  power 
over  a  particular  individual  ;  paralyzing 
him  by  a  stroke,  you  experience  a  moment 
of  omnipotence.  ''There,"  you  say,  ''there 
I  sent  a  ball  that  nobody  could  touch." 
In  your  sublimity  you  may  even  spare  a 
moment's  compassion  for  the  poor  wretch 
who  stands  rooted  in  astonishment,  dazed 
by  the  bolt  before  which  champions  had 
been  powerless.  You  say  to  him  conde- 
scendingly, "  I  caught  that  just  right ;  " 
you  may  even  intimate,  if  you  are  mag- 
nanimous, that  you  do  not  expect  to  do 
the  thing  every  time.  But  in  your  heart 
you  are  boastfully  hopeful,  you  feel  that  at 
last  you  have  found  your  game,  and  you 
believe  that  you  have  the  man  cowed. 

And  how  is  it  when  instead  of  driving 
your  opponent  before  you  and  exhibiting 
a  cleverness  that  seems  really  outside  your- 
self, a  supernatural  precision  of  eye  and 

[  45  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

arm,  you  are  going  down  to  defeat  r  Is 
there  any  delight  in  that  ?  From  a  wide 
range  of  personal  experience  I  would  mod- 
estly assert  that  there  is.  Although  you 
realize  that  the  doom  is  drawing  nearer, 
although  to  avert  it  you  put  forth  your 
mightiest  efforts  and  only  lose  in  strength 
and  breath  while  your  adversary  seems  to 
be  renewing  his  inhuman  power,  you  fight 
on,  hoping  even  to  the  last  that  you  may 
turn  the  tide  and  pull  out  a  glorious  vic- 
tory. You  make  a  stroke  that  spurs  you 
on,  you  follow  it  with  three  that  provoke 
your  bitterest  self-contempt,  and  you  plant 
yourself  with  melodramatic  determination 
in  your  soul  and,  doubtless,  upon  your 
face.  *'  The  Old  Guard  dies,  but  never 
surrenders  ;  "  was  there  no  joy  for  them 
in  their  supreme,  superb  annihilation  r  It 
makes  after  all  little  difference  to  you  emo- 
tionally whether  your  fight  against  odds  is 
a  winning  or  a  losing  one,  so  long  as  it  is 
the  best  fight  that  you  can  put  forward. 
To  be  in  the  thick  of  it,  battering  away 

[46  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

undaunted,  is  the  fun.  Even  if  your  op- 
ponent so  far  overmatches  you  that  the 
outcome  is  hardly  in  question,  you  may 
have  as  good  a  time  as  if  you  stood  to 
win  ;  for  you  go  in  resolved  to  break  down 
his  cool  assurance,  to  make  him  show  his 
best  efforts,  to  unmask  and  damage  his 
strategy  and  gain  his  respect;  and  while 
you  are  striving  with  all  your  pigmy  fury 
to  achieve  this,  you  now  and  then  must 
pause  to  admire  the  overwhelming  strokes 
of  his  resourceful  master  hand. 

It  seems  fitting  here  to  consider  the 
theory,  often  advanced  and  seldom  dis- 
puted, that  a  sport  is  the  better  for  an 
element  of  danger.  If  this  is  true,  the  ad- 
vocates of  tennis  must  be  dumb.  Nothing 
w^orse  than  a  sprained  ankle  or  a  wrenched 
knee  can  befall  a  man  on  a  tennis  court ; 
and  these,  however  painful,  are  not  heroic 
injuries.  I  once  heard  an  eloquent  and 
distinguished  man  in  the  course  of  a  bril- 
liant address  declare  that  the  occasional 
deaths  occurring  in  polo,  in  football,  on  the 

[47  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

hunting  field,  are  the  price  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  pays  for  its  position  of  head- 
ship and  command.  It  was  an  impressive 
and  inspiring  oration ;  and  this  sentiment 
was  echoed  with  a  great  outburst  of  ap- 
plause. Yet  it  does  not  bear  cool  scrutiny. 
The  football  player  will  tell  you  that,  once 
in  the  game,  the  possibility  of  injury  does 
not  occur  to  him  ;  the  polo  player  will 
say  the  same  ;  after  you  have  taken  the 
first  jump,  danger  in  the  hunting  field 
does  not  beset  you.  Where  there  is  no 
consciousness  of  danger,  there  is  no  brav- 
ery. In  the  heat  of  battle  no  man  is  a 
poltroon.  Yes,  but  to  take  the  first  jump, 
to  go  into  the  game,  it  is  urged —  does  not 
that  compel  and  develop  a  man's  courage  ? 
Only  if  he  is  physically  unfit  or  danger- 
ously ignorant;  under  other  circumstances 
to  enter  a  sport  in  which  there  is  an  ele- 
ment of  peril  is  as  natural  for  the  boy 
or  the  man,  and  as  little  an  indication 
of  character,  as  to  go  to  bed  when  one  is 
sleepy  or  to  eat  when  one  is  hungry.   The 

[48  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

boy  who  is    heavy  and  strong,  and  whose 
friends  are  playing  football,  will  take  up 
the   game;   the  man  who  rides  well,  and 
whose   friends  are  playing  polo,  will   try 
his    hand    at    it  ;   and   in    neither   case    is 
there,  on  account  of  the  physical  risk,  any 
access  of  courage  to  the  novice.   The  foot- 
ball player  is  no  more  to  the  front  when 
there  is    a    runaway   horse  to  be  stopped 
or  a  woman  to  be  saved    from    drowning 
than  any  other  chivalrous  and  hardy  man. 
It  is  not  the  element  of  danger  in  a  game 
which  trains  one  to  fortitude  and  courage; 
it   is   the   element  of  opposition,  purely. 
He   is    the   courageous   man   who  in  the 
crisis   of  the  contest    responds   the   more 
daringly  and    steadfastly    the  more   he  is 
tried  ;   and  that  he  may  be  at  the  moment 
in  some  remote  peril  of  life  or  limb  adds 
nothing  to  his  stature,  increases  not  at  all 
the  importance  of  the  test.    The  injuries 
and   deaths   that   sometimes  take  place  in 
our  rougher  sports  should  not   be  viewed 
as  glorifying  these  forms  of  contest ;   they 

[49  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

are  deplorable  calamities,  with  no  miti- 
gation. It  seems  to  me  beyond  debate 
that  the  game  which  is  entirely  harmless 
in  its  play,  which  does  not  imperil  the 
man,  and  which  has  none  the  less  qualities 
that  make  for  manliness,  is  the  best  of  all 
games. 

Certainly,  of  them  all  tennis  is  the  most 
universal;  small  boys,  girls,  women,  men 
of  three  generations,  play  it,  and  the  crack 
has  not  very  much  more  enjoyment  out 
of  it  than  the  duffer.  So  long  as  a  player 
feels  within  him  possibilities  of  growth, 
he  enjoys  the  game  ;  and  even  when  these 
fail,  even  when  he  realizes  that  he  is  slip- 
ping backward,  he  clings  on,  light-heart- 
edly contesting  every  inch  of  the  decline 
with  some  one  of  his  contemporaries.  *'  If 
I  cannot  keep  pace  with  the  advancing 
battalion,  I  shall  not  head  those  who  are 
in  retreat,"  cries  your  optimist ;  and  so  — 
because  tennis  players  are  generally  opti- 
mists—  you  will  see  on  any  warm  sum- 
mer  day  veterans  urging  their  old  limbs 

[  50] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

upon  the  grassy  courts,  crouching  in  their 
play  with  racket  held  stiffly,  trotting  with 
little,  timorous  steps,  poking  at  the  ball 
with  the  gesture  of  uncertain  vision;  and 
you  watch  them  awhile  and  think  per- 
haps in  the  pride  of  your  youth,  **  There 
can't  be  much  fun  in  that."  And  then, 
while  you  are  looking  on,  they  begin  to 
wrangle  about  some  point  ;  they  are  sus- 
picious as  to  whether  or  not  that  ball 
actually  did  strike  the  line;  and  such  ver- 
bal vitality  as  those  four  old  men  will 
then  display,  congregating  at  the  net,  wag- 
ging their  heads,  and  finally  examining 
the  ball  itself  for  traces  of  whitewash  ! 
You  do  not  doubt  any  longer  that  their 
tennis  is  something  of  extreme  moment 
to  them  ;  and  you  wonder  if  with  your 
own  occasional  slipshod  indifference  to 
your  rights  on  doubtful  points  you  do  not 
show  an  unworthy  slight  regard  for  a  noble 
game. 

In  fact,  I  think  that  a  match  between 
old  men  deeply  in  earnest  is  a  spectacle 

[  51  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

more  inspiring  to  one's  humanity  than  a 
tournament  of  champions.  I  do  not  mean 
that  I  would  rather  watch  it ;  I  do  not 
deny  that  for  a  spectator  in  ordinary  mood 
it  is  a  slumberous  proceeding.  Yet  if 
one  is  in  an  idle,  reflective,  kindly  frame  of 
mind,  there  is  nothing  so  cheering  to  one's 
faith,  so  soothing  to  one's  soul,  so  hopeful 
and  sane  and  healthy,  as  the  sight  of  these 
graybeards,  —  venerable  enough  when  you 
meet  them  on  the  street,  and  now  scam- 
pering after  a  ball  with  the  single-minded 
passion  of  a  dog  or  a  child.  Their  squab- 
bles and  their  laughter  are  alike  pleasant 
to  the  ear  ;  and  when  they  stop  between 
sets  to  rest  and  draw  their  asthmatic  breath, 
you  look  at  them  admiringly,  and  hope 
that  when  you  grow  old  you  too  may  be 
this  kind  of  fine  old  boy. 

There  is  charm  also,  though  of  a  dif- 
ferent nature,  in  observing  the  young  duf- 
fer. I  know  not  why  it  should  be  so,  but 
the  strong  young  duffer  in  tennis  is  a 
more  ungainly  and  grotesque  creature  than 

[  52  ] 


LAWN   TENNIS 

any  that  is  furnished  forth  in  other  sports. 
The  golfer  who  swings  without  hitting  the 
ball  is  an  object  of  mild  derision ;  his 
crestfallen  appearance  after  so  tremendous 
an  output  of  power  delights  our  hard 
American  humor.  In  the  same  way  the 
spectacle  of  an  unskilful  baseball  player 
awkwardly  muffing  a  "fly"  has  always  a 
ludicrous  aspect  for  the  "bleachers."  If  we 
do  not  sit  upon  the  bleachers,  we  with- 
hold the  ridiculing  outcry,  but  our  amuse- 
ment is  no  less  keen  for  being  suppressed. 
The  gingerly  clumsiness  with  which  a 
well-grown  man  will  hold  up  a  tennis 
racket,  seeming  appalled  by  the  harmless 
instrument,  prepares  us  to  watch  for  his 
next  entertaining  capers.  He  poses  him- 
self with  great  care,  gives  a  fine  prelimi- 
nary flourish  of  his  weapon,  and  then  taps 
the  ball  with  a  lady-like  movement  and 
laborious  intentness  of  aim.  It  goes  wild, 
and  he  screws  his  body  to  one  side  with  a 
frantic  instinct  to  correct  the  disappointing 
flight.    I  would  not  seem  unsympathetic 

[  53  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

with  the  duffer  ;   how  should   I   hope  for 
mercy,  showing  none ! 

Given,  as  he  usually  is,  to  expletive  and 
malediction,  the  beginner  is  never  so  ram- 
pant as  he  who  has  progressed  a  stage  and  is 
trying  strokes.  Genus  irritabile  !  The  duffer 
is  determined  to  master  the  drive — that 
long  low  stroke  that  skims  the  net  and 
then  drops  sharply,  the  stroke  that  is  inval- 
uable to  one  playing  in  the  back  of  the  court. 
Holding  his  racket  conscientiously  in  the 
manner  prescribed,  he  advances  upon  an 
easy  bound,  swings,  leaping  from  the  earth 
with  both  feet,  and  sends  the  ball  flying 
over  the  club-house.  Then  what  vocifera- 
tion !  He  has  not  the  contained  solemnity 
of  the  veterans  playing  near  by,  or  the  ab- 
sorbed anxiety  of  mien  of  the  utter  duffer; 
his  interest  in  the  game  itself  seems  not  so 
profound,  and  therefore  is  not  so  touching 
as  theirs  ;  he  is  animated  too  keenly  by  an 
egotistical  desire  for  self-improvement. 

When  the  duffer  has  at  last  attained  a 
**  stroke,"  it  is  too  often  only  to  become 

[  54  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

its  slave.    There  is  so  much  physical  satis- 
faction in  making  a  clean,  swift,  forehand 
drive  across  court  or  down   the  side  line 
that  a   player  who  has  a   moderate  profi- 
ciency in  this  will  try  it  under  the  most 
rash  and  ill-favored  conditions.    Running 
at  full  speed  and  just  reaching  the  ball  that 
he  should  lob,  he  will  swipe  desperately, 
and  the    occasional    lucky  shot    that    he 
achieves    compensates   him   for   the   half 
dozen  that  he  has  sent  wild.    But  in  the 
score  his  errors  are  not  forgotten  ;   and  at 
the  end  of  the  game  he  will  perhaps  won- 
der why  so  brilliant  a  player  as  himself 
does  not  more  often  win.    Generally  speak- 
ing, the  player  who  cultivates  a  stroke  lays 
himself  open  to  attack  at  every  other  point ; 
his  backhand  is  liable  to  be  weak,  his  game 
at   the    net  is  neglected,  he  becomes  ob- 
sessed with  the  notion  that  if  he  can  only 
get  that  stroke  going  hard  and  accurately, 
it  will  carry  him  through  unaided.    And 
that    is  why  many    a   showy   player  goes 
down  before  one  whose  game  is  more  slow 

[55  ] 

-c " 


LAWN    TENNIS 

and  dull  to  watch.  For  any  high  degree 
of  proficiency,  speed  is  of  course  an  essen- 
tial ;  but  extreme  speed  is  more  often  ex- 
hibited by  players  of  the  second  or  third 
class  than  by  the  most  successful  cracks. 
The  supreme  skill  lies  in  the  ability  to 
hit  a  ball  as  well  from  one  position  as 
from  another,  backhand,  forehand,  volley, 
or  half-volley,  and  next  to  that  in  adjust- 
ing the  balance  between  speed  and  accu- 
racy ;  even  by  long  practice  you  may  never 
learn  to  gauge  the  pace  above  which  or 
below  which  you  may  not  go  without 
sacrificing  precision  or  direction.  This 
requires  a  genius  for  tennis,  a  native  in- 
stinct, and  an  unusual  power  of  coordi- 
nation. 

I  have  never  seen  a  match  between 
players  of  the  first  rank  without  having 
a  slightly  disappointed  sense  that  their 
performance  seemed  less  wonderful  than 
it  actually  was.  I  fancy  that  to  any  one 
who  has  played  tennis  a  little,  such  an  ex- 
hibition  falls    in  just  this   way  short   of 

[  56  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

anticipation.  The  game  is  not  a  sequence 
of  magnificent  bursts  of  speed,  sensational 
smashes,  extraordinary  ralhes,  although  at 
moments  these  do  flash  and  electrify  ;  it 
proceeds  with  an  outward  smoothness, 
ease  and  rhythm  of  movement,  that  by  no 
means  intimates  the  tension  of  the  con- 
test. The  spectator  is  tempted  to  the  re- 
mark, ''  It  seems  so  simple ;  why  shouldn't 
anybody  play  that  way  .?  "  Every  swing  of 
■  the  rackets  is  free,  absolutely  unstudied, 
propelled  with  the  least  muscular  effort ; 
you  feel  that  if  you  were  to  pick  up  a 
racket  for  the  first  time,  that  would  be 
exactly  the  way  you  would  naturally  swing 
it.  And  the  players  seem  not  to  be  run- 
ning about  so  very  violently  ;  on  the  whole, 
not  so  violently  as  you  yourself  run  when 
you  plav ;  you  watch  them  and  do  not 
understand  how*they  manage  this.  One 
places  the  ball,  you  v^^ould  say,  definitely ; 
yet  without  much  apparent  exertion  the 
other  is  there  and  has  returned  it.  The 
explanation  is  that  these  players  by  instinct 

[57] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

and  long  experience  know  how  to  cover 
their  court  and  economize  their  strength ; 
anticipating  every  stroke,  they  are  quick 
at  starting  ;  every  movement  counts,  and 
they  go  through  no  unnecessary  flounder- 
ing ;  immediate  perception  does  for  them 
what  sheer  strength  and  speed  can  never  do 
for  the  less  gifted.  In  tennis,  as  in  other 
matters,  the  highest  achievements  often 
seem  spontaneous  and  casual. 

Unquestionably  the  most  distinguished 
exponents  of  the  game  that  is  both  leisurely 
yet  cat-like  in  quickness  are  the  English 
gentlemen  who  took  from  us  the  Interna- 
tional Cup.  In  contrast  to  their  method 
of  covering  the  court,  even  our  best 
American  players  seemed  to  rush  and 
scramble.  The  Englishmen  moved  with 
an  unassuming  stealth,  and  were  not  over- 
anxious to  receive  the  ball  at  the  most 
favorable  point  of  the  bound.  Our  players 
obviously  took  greater  pains  to  get  into  po- 
sition. The  Englishgame  was  on  the  whole 
the  more  finished  and  perfect ;  the  Ameri- 

[58  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

can  game  —  in  singles  only —  the  more  ag- 
gressive and  compulsive.  The  Englishmen, 
playing  at  top  notch  and  with  all  despera- 
tion, gave  the  impression  of  still  having 
something  in  reserve ;  it  was  always  clear 
w^hen  the  Americans  were  straining  every 
resource.  In  the  American  game  there 
was  more  personality ;  in  the  English 
game  there  was  more  form.  The  quali- 
ties came  out  curiously  in  many  ways  — 
even  in  the  matter  of  dress.  In  this  respect 
the  visitors  were  as  precise  as  in  their  play, 
appearing  always  in  the  freshest  white 
clothes,  white  even  to  their  shoes,  wearing 
their  long  sleeves  flapping  modestly  about 
their  wrists  ;  the  Americans,  with  their 
various  drab  flannels,  their  black  spiked 
shoes,  and  their  rolled-up  sleeves,  pre- 
sented a  more  dangerous  and  less  attractive 
appearance.  The  dilettante  aspect  of  the 
English  champions  made  their  efficient 
performance  the  more  astonishing  to  our 
eyes.  They  moved  softly  upon  the  grass 
with  their  rubber-soled  shoes,  instead  of 

[  59  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

tearing  it  with  spikes  according  to  our 
barbarous  practice  ;  they  preserved  unruf- 
fled through  five  hard  sets  the  garden  party 
look  with  which  they  first  appeared  ;  they 
almost  made  us  feel  that  to  perspire  when 
playing  tennis,  if  not  actually  vulgar,  is  at 
least  undisciplined.  With  such  refinement 
of  appearance,  the  most  scrupulous  courtesy 
and  sportsmanship  were  to  be  expected ;  and 
indeed  one  of  the  visitors  performed  the 
prettiest  act  of  the  tournament.  When  on  a 
mistaken  decision  the  umpire  awarded  him 
a  point  that  was  not  his,  he  drove  the  next 
ball  out  of  court,  making  amends  to  his 
opponent. 

The  gracefulness  of  the  act  was  unu- 
sual, but  the  spirit  that  prompted  it  pre- 
vails widely  in  tennis,  and  it  is  this  that 
gives  the  game  so  pleasant  an  atmosphere. 
Except  occasionally  for  a  hurried,  excited 
"  How's  that?  "  when  the  player  is  un- 
certain whether  a  ball  is  in  or  out,  there 
is  never  a  word  said  to  the  umpire  ;  and 
the   times  when   one  may  see  disgust,  re- 

[  60  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

sentment,  even  a  passing  surprise  expressed 
on  a  player's  face  at  a  flagrantly  mistaken 
decision,  are  so  rare  as  to  be  memorable. 
I  recall  at  least  two  matches  of  an  ago- 
nizing closeness  that  turned  on  faulty  de- 
cisions, yet  on  neither  occasion  did  the 
sufferer  betray  by  glance  at  umpire  or 
spectators  any  sense  of  injury.  In  no  other 
game,  I  think,  are  self-control  and  a  read- 
iness to  put  the  best  face  on  misfortune 
so  generally  the  rule. 

And  this  is  of  course  a  part  of  not 
taking  one's  game  too  seriously.  It  is  no 
uncommon  thing,  according  to  reports, 
for  the  defeated  contestants  in  a  decisive 
rowing  race  or  football  match  to  burst  into 
tears.  I  have  never  heard  of  a  deposed 
tennis  champion  making  such  a  demon- 
stration. What  is  the  difference  ?  Is  it  that 
the  tension  is  really  so  much  greater  in 
one  form  of  sport  than  in  another?  Partly 
this,  perhaps ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think 
the  deeper  cause  lies  in  the  fact  that  in 
tennis  you  go  down    to   defeat  alone    or 

[  6i  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

at  most  with  only  one  other  ;  while  in 
football  and  rowing  your  grief  is  redupli- 
cated for  all  the  comrades  with  whom  you 
have  met  disaster,  —  who  undertook  with 
you  some  responsibility  that  at  the  time 
looms  disproportionately  great.  Now  it  is 
a  line  thing  to  experience  sorrow  in  this 
way,  even  though  to  us  on  the  outside  the 
cause  appears  trifling  ;  such  suffering  pro- 
motes one's  sympathy  and  opens  one's 
heart ;  and  when  we  consider  the  human- 
izing influence  of  a  defeat  at  rowing  or 
football,  we  do  not  weigh  too  heavily  the 
foolishness  of  the  occasional  hysterical 
outburst.  And  tennis  has  no  such  moments 
of  dramatic  awakening.  Its  after  effects 
are  comparatively  mild.  Even  in  the  case 
of  doubles,  where  you  have  another  to  be 
sorry  for,  defeat  brings  out  a  mutual  spirit 
of  good  humor  and  acquiescence ;  you 
reproach  yourself  and  your  partner  re- 
proaches himself,  but  neither  of  you  sits 
in  gloom  ;  there  is  a  light  touch  in  your 
mutual  apology.     And  the  game  that  is 

[  62  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

permeated  with  so  tolerant  and  gay  a  spirit 
seems  to  me  better  than  the  one  that 
probes  the  deeps  in  men's  souls.  We  must 
not  suffer  too  much  in  our  sports ;  shall 
we  have  no  joy  in  life? 

I  am  trespassing  on  my  purpose  in  en- 
tering again  for  even  a  moment  the  field 
of  controversy  ;  but  before  emerging,  and 
because  it  bears  some  relation  to  this  sub- 
ject of  not  taking  one's  game  too  seriously, 
I  would  point  out  that  as  yet  there  have 
been  in  tennis  —  in  this  country,  at  least 
—  no  squabbles  about  *' eligibility  "  and 
'*  amateur  standing,"  no  noisy  coaching 
from  the  side  lines,  and  no  professional 
teachers.  A  game  which  thrives,  yet  which 
offers  no  inducement  to  the  "  professional," 
is  one  that  is  played  in  a  sufficiently  light- 
hearted  spirit. 

This  does  not  qualify  the  importance 
of  the  actual  contest.  Those  who  cannot 
throw  themselves  into  it  as  if  for  the  time 
being  it  were  the  most  momentous  thing 
in  life,  will  never  appreciate  its  delighta 

[63  ] 


I 


LAWN    TENNIS 

The  overmastering,  avaricious  desire  to 
win  is  always  to  be  deprecated,  but  to  be 
keen  to  play  one's  best  and  bear  one's  self 
steadily  and  valorously  in  the  crisis  should 
be  the  essential  spirit  of  the  game.  To  be 
sure,  that  is  the  spirit  in  which  all  games 
should  be  played  ;  but  tennis  least  of  all 
permits  any  shirking  of  the  issue.  When 
the  crisis  comes,  there  is  no  chance  for 
the  weak-hearted  to  thank  his  stars  that 
some  one  else  than  himself  is  called  upon; 
and  if  he  has  the  spark  of  manhood,  he  will 
not  look  too  complacently  upon  defeat. 
Excitement  and  exhaustion  may  wear  the 
player  down,  but  he  must  set  himself 
only  the  more  resolutely  to  the  task  of 
playing  better  than  he  has  ever  yet  done. 
The  time  comes  when  his  heart  pounds 
and  his  lungs  are  pumping  for  air  ;  when 
he  walks  drooping  and  reeking  under  the 
blazing  sun ;  but  he  must  not  allow  his 
misery  to  engage  his  mind,  he  must  not 
debate  the  question  how  much  longer  he 
can  endure :   he  must  bend  all  his  intent- 

[64] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

ness  of  purpose,  all  the  remnant  of  his 
strength,  upon  repelling  the  final  assault 
of  the  foe.  Of  such  importance  is  the  ac- 
tual contest,  —  and  its  importance  ceases 
utterly  when  the  last  point  has  been  played. 
I  am  drawing  for  illustration  upon  an 
extreme  case;  in  our  ordinary  matches  we 
stop  short  of  the  point  where  suffering 
begins.  We  are  leisurely,  and  we  do  not 
prolong  our  game  until  we  are  threatened 
with  collapse  on  the  court.  But  however 
leisurely  our  methods,  however  mild  our 
strokes,  tennis  makes  an  exacting  demand 
upon  our  faculties ;  the  temper  of  the  game 
is  ardent,  not  phlegmatic.  One  of  the  best 
players  this  country  has  ever  produced  will 
come  into  the  club-house  between  sets  of 
an  insignificant  match,  panting  more  with 
nervousness  than  with  fatigue,  trembling 
so  that  he  cannot  hold  his  racket  steady, 
looking  harassed,  frightened,  and  desper- 
ate. He  calls  on  his  friends  to  fan  him 
with  towels,  he  tells  them  how  scared 
he   is,  he  holds  the  glass  of  water  brought 

[  65  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

him,  in  a  shaking  hand.  Yet  after  the  in- 
terval he  will  return  to  the  court,  make 
unerring  shots  along  the  lines,  and  show 
the  most  thorough  command  of  nerves 
and  muscles,  even  though  between  plays 
he  is  twitching  with  excitement.  And 
after  he  has  won,  as  is  his  usual  custom, 
the  game  is  of  hardly  enough  interest  to 
him  to  serve  as  the  briefest  topic  of  con- 
versation ;  he  jumps  under  the  shower, 
and  then  while  he  dresses  he  discusses  with 
you  where  he  had  better  dine  and  how 
he  shall  pass  the  evening  ;  he  may  even 
insist  on  reading  to  you  from  some  precious 
little  book  of  poems  that  he  keeps  in  his 
locker  ;  although  it  is  more  likely  that  he 
will  be  throwing  towels  and  accusing  some 
one  of  having  stolen  his  shoes. 

The  manners  of  tournament  players  in 
the  presence  of  spectators  are  an  interest- 
ing if  trivial  study.  Some  of  them  make 
it  a  point  never  to  glance  at  the  audience  ; 
in  idle  moments  they  keep  their  eyes  on 
the  ground  or  perhaps  toss  them  skyward 

[  66  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

as  they  walk  to  their  places.  Others  favor 
the  crowd  with  an  occasional  stolid,  in- 
expressive stare.  A  few  have  adopted  an 
ingenuous,  cheerful,  confiding  smile  which 
they  flash  at  certain  junctures — as  when 
they  make  a  particularly  bad  shot.  When 
they  do  something  brilliant  and  there  is 
applause,  they  look  stern,  even  annoyed. 
Mannerisms  wear  off  in  some  degree  as 
the  player  becomes  involved  in  the  excite- 
ment of  the  game;  but  the  grand-stand 
player  never  quite  forgets  himself.  There 
will  be  the  mute  appeal  to  the  heavens 
when  his  shot  goes  extravagantly  wild,  or 
the  staggering  display  of  exhaustion  when 
he  has  crowned  a  long  rally  with  a  bril- 
liant stroke. 

But  these  are  superficial  trifles  on  which 
to  dwell,  and  we  shall  err  if  we  regard 
them  too  narrowly.  Your  grand-stand 
player  is  often  as  worthy  a  person  as  the 
man  whom  you  would  more  readily  de- 
fine as  of  ** sterling"  character;  pass  by 
the  weakness  of  a  little  vanity,  and   he  is 

[  67  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

perhaps  as  alert  to  opportunities,  as  keen 
in  the  game,  as  plucky  a  fighter  as  his 
more  steady-going  opponent.  Indeed,  we 
are  in  danger  of  trusting  our  games  too  im- 
plicitly as  tests  of  character.  With  all  our 
enthusiasm  for  our  own  particular  sports, 
we  shall  do  well  to  pause  and  consider 
whether  on  the  whole  the  men  of  high 
attainments  in  these  go  farther  than  other 
men.  The  great  football  hero  of  fifteen 
years  ago  is  still  remembered  ;  but  since 
running  the  length  of  the  field  for  a  touch- 
down, has  he  done  anything  that  is  worthy 
of  note  ?  We  Americans  are  inclined  to 
set  too  high  a  value  on  athletic  prowess 
of  any  kind  ;  our  newspapers  thrust  fame 
on  heads  too  young  to  wear  it,  and  there 
is  sometimes  a  melancholy  petty  tragedy 
in  the  case  of  the  man  who  is  more  widely 
celebrated  at  the  age  of  twenty-one  than 
he  will  ever  be  again.  Very  likely  he  is 
a  person  of  good  average  abilities  and  per- 
severing character,  who  will  fill  a  worthy 
quiet  corner  and  look  back  with  pleasure 

[  68  ] 


LAWN   TENNIS 

onhis  shining  and  triumphantyouth  ;  then 
there  is  no  great  harm  done.  But  now 
and  then  one  sees  a  man  who  played  a  game 
too  conspicuously  well  and,  doing  so,  ful- 
filled his  destiny. 

Tournaments  and  match  play  are  by  no 
means  the  only  feature  of  tennis  that  should 
be  considered;  indeed  they  are  perhaps 
the  least  important.  There  are  a  hundred 
people  getting  enjoyment  out  of  the  game 
for  every  one  who  enters  a  tournament.  It 
does  not  trouble  the  boy  that  his  court  is 
not  good  or  that  his  racket  is  ill-balanced 
and  poorly  strung  ;  he  marks  out  the  lines 
with  his  own  hands,  pulls  his  own  roller, 
and  then  plays  the  game,  blithely  indiffer- 
ent to  all  imperfections.  Many  a  suburb-, 
anite  now  has  his  cramped,  sometimes 
his  undersized  court,  where  he  engages 
in  conflict  with  the  neighbor  on  a  Satur- 
day afternoon;  cities  are  finding  it  neces- 
sary to  provide  facilities  for  tennis  in  the 
public  playgrounds ;  and  young  people 
gather    there,    bringing    half-worn    balls 

[69  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

and  old  rackets,  and  await  patiently  their 
turn. 

There  is,  however,  no  advantage  to  be 
gained  from  playing  under  difficulties  ;  the 
better  the  court,  the  better  the  fun.  As 
your  game  improves,  it  ceases  to  be  a 
laughable  phenomenon  if  the  ball  repeat- 
edly strikes  some  irregularity  of  surface 
and  bounds  off  at  right  angles  to  its  proper 
course.  After  a  time  you  appreciate  with 
exasperation  what  it  means  to  have  only 
three  feet  of  space  behind  the  base-line  ; 
you  are  sure  that  with  a  fair  chance  you 
could  return  those  deep-driven  balls,  and 
you  long  for  an  opportunity  to  try.  So 
you  abandon  your  private  court  to  the 
children  and  join  a  club.  It  is  a  wise 
move  ;  not  only  are  the  courts  maintained 
in  better  condition,  but  you  also  have  the 
advantage  of  testing  your  game  against  a 
variety  of  opponents,  instead  of  in  repeated 
meetings  with  the  same  one  or  two.  Your 
play  improves  rapidly  —  up  to  the  point 
where  improvement  ceases. 

[  70] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

It  is  no  more  than  reasonable  that  lawn 
tennis  should  be  at  its  best  on  grass.    In 
this  country,  however,  it  is  usually  played 
on  a  surface  of  dirt  or  cinders;   and  cer- 
tainly for  the  enthusiast,  who  is  impatient 
for  the  end  of  winter,  and  does  not  put 
away  his  racket  until  after  the  snow  flies 
in  the  late  autumn,  the  dirt  court  is  a  ne- 
cessity.   It  prolongs  the  tennis  season  by 
more  than   two  months.    When  rain  and 
mist  and  dew  dampen  the  turf  and  make 
la'wn  tennis   impossible,  the  dirt  court  is 
still  hard  and  dry.    It  is  very  wearing  on 
shoes  and  balls  and   rackets,   it  soils  the 
clothes,   it   blisters   the  feet,   it  sends  jar- 
ring vibrations  through  the  system  ;   but 
it  enables  us  to  play  in  April  and  October. 
We  slip  and  slide  if  we  try  to  turn  sharply, 
we  find  the  aggressive  game  at  the  net 
hardly  practicable  ;  yet  with  all  its  infirm- 
ities  the   dirt  court    is   a   most  excellent 
makeshift.    A  good  dirt  court  is  preferable 
to    a    mediocre    grass  court  ;   a  poor  dirt 
court  is  better  than  none  at  all.    He  who 

[71  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

has  played  on  championship  grounds  and 
therefore  dedines  a  contest  on  his  friend's 
home-made  court  is  a  tennis  snob;  hap- 
pily, the  type  is  rare. 

The  good  grass  court  is  a  luxury  and  a 
delight.  To  throw  off  one's  clothes  on 
a  hot  summer  day,  put  on  the  coolest  and 
lightest  of  garments,  and  run  out  across  the 
sunny  lawn,  where  the  afternoon  shadows 
lay  their  quiet  fingers ;  to  prance  there 
and  rush  about  and  breast  the  net,  from 
which  your  adversary  tries  hotly  to  dis- 
lodge you  ;  to  hit  out  with  the  exhilarat- 
ing sweep  of  arm  and  body,  to  feel  the 
racket  responsive  in  your  hand,  to  see  the 
ball  fly  swiftly  where  you  would  have  it 
go  ;  and  through  all  the  stress  and  sweat 
to  be  conscious  of  the  kind  sun  and  the 
quick  turf  and  the  green  maples  and  elms 
that  fringe  the  field  —  is  not  this  one  of 
life's  priceless  pleasures  ?  He  is  happy  who 
learns  to  know  it  in  his  youth  ;  he  is  happy 
who  finds  that  it  does  not  fail  him  in  his 
age.    It  is   true  that  when  we  play  tennis 

[  72  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

we  may  not  observe  closely  the  trees  or 
listen  for  the  songs  of  birds  or  have  leisure 
to  admire  the  shapes  and  hues  of  floating 
clouds  ;  no,  tennis  does  not  bring  us  into 
any  definite  relation  with  nature,  but  that 
is  the  inevitable  defect  of  an  engrossing 
game.  Nor  is  it  the  most  social  of  our 
sports.  Golf  is  a  conversational  oppor- 
tunity ;  in  baseball,  to  coach  from  the 
side  lines  must  satisfy  the  most  talkative. 
But  tennis  is  all  strife,  with  no  time  for 
comment.  In  doubles  you  now  and  then 
exchange  with  your  partner  a  word  of 
advice,  approval,  or  encouragement;  in 
singles  you  ejaculate  to  your  opponent 
*'Good  shot!"  or  **Hard  luck!"  Beyond 
this,  intercourse  does  not  go.  It  is,  even 
in  critical  matches,  a  noiseless  battle;  the 
droning  iteration  of  the  score  from  the 
referee  sitting  on  his  high  seat  by  the  net, 
the  soft  thud  of  the  ball  upon  the  racket, 
the  swift  catlike  steps  of  the  players,  con- 
vey no  adequate  intimation  of  the  strug- 
gle.   It  is  far  different  in  atmosphere  from 

[73] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

a  rowing  race,  with  the  coxswains  of  the 
crews  yelling  madly  through  their  mega- 
phones ;  from  a  baseball  game,  with  its 
shrill  chatter ;  from  a  football  game,  with 
the  quarterback  shouting  raucous  signals 
in  the  arena  and  the  inclosing  myriads 
roaring  out  their  cheers.  Although  it  is 
so  nervous  and  active,  it  is  of  all  games 
the  most  silent  and  self-contained. 

It  is  not,  however,  utterly  unsocial. 
There  is  talk  enough  afterwards  in  the 
club-house;  and  even  on  the  court  players 
become  in  an  acute  and  sympathetic  though 
unspeaking  way  aware  of  one  another.  In 
the  end  tennis  brings  its  followers  into  a 
more  intimate  relation  with  human  na- 
ture. It  purges  them  of  their  cares  and 
their  unhealthy  thoughts  and  desires ;  it 
clarifies  the  mind  and  makes  sane  the  soul ; 
it  satisfies  the  restlessness  and  contentious- 
ness of  the  spirit  and  gives  it  peace.  On 
the  tennis  court  there  are  developed  stead- 
fastness of  aim  and  purpose,  a  better  tem- 
per, and  a  kinder   heart ;    here,  through 

[  74] 


LAWN   TENNIS 

striving  with  your  fellow  man,  you  may 
learn  to  love  him.  Foes  in  sport  are  friends 
in  spirit ;  if  the  hand  of  every  man  seems 
against  us,  and  our  hand  against  every  man, 
let  us  spill  our  antagonism  harmlessly  upon 
the  tennis  court.  Many  a  blue  devil  has 
here  been  crushed  under  heel,  many  an 
animosity  has  been  softened.  You  cannot 
think  altogether  ill  of  any  man  against 
whom  you  have  stood  in  a  hard  and  fairly 
fought  game  ;  you  may  even  come  to  think 
well  of  one  whom  you  have  hitherto  held 
in  slight  regard.  Likewise,  in  their  hum- 
ble way,  do  our  international  matches  have 
a  civilizing  influence.  The  surest  guaran- 
tee of  a  permanent  peace  among  nations 
would  be  to  have  them  striving  keenly 
with  one  another  in  their  games. 

Some  verses  read  at  a  tennis  club  dinner 
represent  an  effort  to  express,  not  too  seri- 
ously, the  best  that  the  game  does  for  its 
players  :  — 

One  time  the  most  of  us,  no  doubt, 
Had  open  hearts  for  others; 

[  75  ] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

We  scorned  the  shield  Distrust  held  out. 
We  met  all  men  as  brothers. 

With  years  cool  wisdom  on  us  slips 

The  armor  once  declined  ; 
The  laugh  grows  idle  on  our  lips. 

Or  purpose  lurks  behind. 

Fearful  to  lose  our  little  place, 

We  dare  not  venture  far 
To  welcome  others  of  our  race. 

Men  of  the  self-same  star. 

Eager  to  win  beyond  our  ranks, 

We  trample  others  down, 
And  pressing  o'er  them  murmur  thanks, 

Our  eyes  upon  the  crown. 

And  vet  we  bear  no  enmity  ; 

"It's  life,"  we  sadly  say; 
■We  would  be  genial,  open,  free 
To  all  men  as  the  day. 

'This  armor  that  doth  make  us  safe, 
This  visor  to  the  eye, 
We  feel  their  weight,  we  feel  them  chafe, 
We  fain  would  put  them  by." 

[  76] 


LAWN    TENNIS 

And  when  we  come  to  our  green  field. 
Far  from  the  strife  of  town, 

Forthwith  in  gentleness  we  vield 
And  lay  that  armor  down. 

The  touch  of  flannels  to  our  skin, 

Of  grass  beneath  our  feet, 
Of  sun  at  throat  may  help  us  win 

Safe  past  the  judgment  seat. 


Ill 

WORK   AND   PLAY 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

That  more  people  know  how  to  work 
than  how  to  play  seems  to  be  a  defect  of 
education.    All  the  punishments  of  child- 
hood are  for  lawlessly  following  the  im- 
pulse to  play ;   and  nearly  all  the  rewards 
are  for  aptitude  and  industry  in  work.    In 
some  respects  there  has  been  a  relaxation  ; 
the  interest  taken  by  most  pedagogues  in 
the  sports  of  their  pupils   and   the   semi- 
official recognition  of  athletic  prowess  in 
schools  are  signs  of  a  partial  reaction.    But 
it  is  only  partial;   the  spirit  of  play  is  of- 
ten suppressed  before  it  becomes   articu- 
late;  the  spirit  of  work  is  from  the  first 
fostered  and  stimulated.     To  nearly  all  is 
it  emphasized  that    on    work  their   very 
being  depends  ;   but  to  only  a  few  is  it 
made  clear  that  on  play  depends  their  well- 
being. 

As  a  nation,  we  are,  it  is  true,  devoted 

[  8i  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

to  sports  and  games,  and  therefore  it  would 
appear    on   the  surface    quite  needless   to 
point  out  the  advantages  of  play.     There 
is  too  much  play  already,  in   the  opinion 
of  many  not  illiberal  persons ;   they  say  that 
our  young  men  at  college  play  more  than 
they  work,  and  they  instance  the  general 
and  often  unhealthy  interest  in  racing  and 
bridge.     Certainly  it  is  but   natural   that 
the  instinct  for  diversion,  so  often  cowed 
and  stunted  by  drastic  measures  in  child- 
hood, or  perhaps  given  an  equally  unwise 
license,   should  be   a   groping    or  an  un- 
balanced  instinct,   prolific    of  injudicious 
excesses.      The  unfortunate  persons  who 
commit  these    bring   discredit  on  the  art 
of  play.    For  it  is  an  art,  of  which  games, 
even   at  their  best,  are  only  a  crude  and 
imperfect    expression.     They    have    their 
value;   but  play  that  requires  for  itself  — 
as  games  do  require  —  a  special   machin- 
ery and  knowledge  is  not  of  the  kind  most 
readily  available,  is  not  the  most  cunning, 
and  in  that  way  most  satisfying  resource. 

[  82  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

The  man  who  is  dependent  on  his  racket 
or  his  bat  or  his  pack  of  cards  for  his 
amusement,  is  doomed  to  pass  many  dull 
hours.  Too  few  of  us  have  learned  how 
to  play  when  we  are  alone  ;  too  few  of  us 
have  learned  how  to  play  with  people  who 
cannot  use  a  racket  or  a  bat  or  a  pack  of 
cards.  The  woman  tending  the  plants  in 
her  garden  is  playing  more  profitably,  it 
may  be,  than  the  admired  pitcher  on  the 
local  ball  nine,  w^ho  strikes  out  three  men 
in  an  inning.  She  does  not  experience  his 
sensational  moments,  but  she  is  gayly  occu- 
pied in  a  creative  process,  and  that  is  play 
of  the  most  soul-expanding  kind.  More- 
over, it  is  play  that  is  not  dependent  on 
youth  and  activity,  but  that  may  continue 
to  serve  one  in  feebleness  and  age. 

The  idea  is  current  that  action  is  the 
essence  of  play.  Hence  the  extreme  mis- 
ery of  the  tennis  enthusiast  who  with 
racket  and  court  is  ready  to  amuse  himself, 
but  has  no  worthy  foeman  ;  of  the  auto- 
mobilist  whose  machine  is  laid  by  for  re- 

[83] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

pairs ;  of  the  house  party  of  athletes  on  a 
rainy  afternoon.  The  general  failure  to 
perceive  that  there  may  be  a  very  satisfac- 
tory return  in  the  exercise  of  observation, 
in  the  practice  of  imagination,  or  even  in 
the  loosening  of  one's  reluctant  speech,  is 
excusable,  for  it  is  just  the  tendency  to  do 
these  things  that  was  so  impressively  pun- 
ished when  we  were  small.  What  is  it  that 
leads  children  to  truancy  from  school,  and 
totheothermost  heinouschildish  breaches? 
In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  it  is  not  any  im- 
perative call  to  action,  but  merely  a  desire 
to  See.  A  paltry  and  commonplace  hill  be- 
comes a  height  beckoning  with  romance; 
and  the  child  is  not  contented  until  he  has 
scaled  it  and  ascertained  what  the  world 
is  beyond.  Nearly  always  this  desire  to  see 
unites  with  it  a  belief  in  strange  happen- 
ings and  adventures,  if  one  could  only  slip 
outside  of  the  prescribed  and  familiar 
round  ;  or  again,  perhaps  there  is  the  con- 
viction that  in  violating  the  law,  even 
though  it  is  only  to  sneak  away  and  hide 

[  84  ] 


WORK   AND    PLAY 

in  a  dark  cellar,  there  is  glorious  heroism 
or  martyrdom.     To  See  and  to   Imagine 

—  these  natural  faculties  of  man  may  be 
converted  into  a  means  of  play,  even 
as  the  child  is  trying  always  to  convert 
them.  If  early  experience  and  tradition 
had  not  taught  us  to  associate  a  penalty 
with  the  employment  of  these  faculties, 
we  should  not  be  so  often  at  a  loss  for 
resources. 

Mere  idleness  opens  up  for  any  one  who 
has  eyes  to  see  and  a  mind  to  dream  a 
playground  of  infinite  variety.  To  sit,  for 
instance,  in  a  garden  and  watch  a  bumble- 
bee despoiling  the  flowers,  blundering 
tentatively  from  this  to  that,  at  last  grap- 
pling one  with  fierce  ardor,  bending  it  on 
its  stem  and  showering  down  the  gathered 
dew,  climbing  up  and  into  the  very  heart 
of  it,  and  then  after  a  brief  moment 
emerging  and  spurning  from  him  the  pet- 
als that  he  had  embraced  so  amorouslv, 

—  this,  to  him  who  observes  it  with  a  mind 
attentive  to  nothing  else,  is  play.    It   may 

[  85  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

be  play  to  stroll  along  a  city  pavement,  to 
cling  to  a  strap  in  a  crowded  car,  to  talk 
to  one's  neighbor  on  a  stool  at  a  lunch 
counter.  And  to  watch  a  man  laying 
bricks,  or  to  lounge  upon  a  fence  and 
observe  the  plowman  driving  his  horses 
in  the  field,  or  to  inspect  any  sort  of  man- 
ual labor,  should  always  entertain  one  who 
is  at  leisure,  and  in  whose  personal  expe- 
rience such  labor  has  never  been  more  than 
a  diversion.  If  a  child's  eye  rests  upon  a 
carpenter  at  work,  it  is  held  in  fascina- 
tion. It  is  unreasonable  and  wrong  that  we 
should  outgrow  this  interest  of  the  child  ; 
the  objects  or  occupations  may  become 
more  familiar  to  us,  but  they  should  not 
seem  stale  ;  our  interest  in  them,  instead 
of  declining,  should  only  become  the  more 
expert.  We  should  be  detecting  charac- 
teristics and  comparing  methods  and  gain- 
ing knowledge  of  a  variety  of  men. 

The  disposition  toward  this  sort  of  play 
is  put  down  in  early  childhood  with  the 
frequent  reminder,  "  You  must  learn  not 

[86] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

to  stare  at  people,"  or,  *'It  isn't  polite  to 
point."  It  is  repressed  even  more  at  the 
later  period  of  school,  when  the  boy  is  left 
no  choice  between  close  attention  to  books 
in  the  schoolroom  and  devotion  to  bodily 
exercise  out  of  doors.  The  fact  that  the 
education  of  girls  is  generally  so  much 
more  lax  in  both  these  respects  accounts, 
no  doubt,  for  the  feminine  **  handiness  " 
and  flexibility  at  play  ;  ten  women  for  one 
man  know  how  to  amuse  themselves  with 
trifles,  to  find  sport  in  an  idea,  delight  in  a 
conversation,  and  contentment  in  solitude. 
It  is  probablv  true  that  to  attain  their  ex- 
cellent frivolity  they  passed  through  a  less 
wholesome  and  healthy  period  than  the 
corresponding  period  in  the  life  of  the 
normal  boy  ;  so  far  as  a  man  can  judge, 
the  typical  school-girl  is  a  capricious,  vain, 
egotistical,  and  snobbish  creature.  Few 
things  are  more  unsavory  or  depressing 
than  the  literature  —  fortunately  not  ex- 
tensive—  of  girls'  school  life  ;  nine  tenths 
of  the  stories  which  undertake  to  describe 

[  87  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

it  deal  with  the  inhuman  treatment  of 
schoolmates  who  are  poorly  dressed  or  **  of 
inferior  social  position."  A  precocious  fac- 
ulty of  observation  seems  usually  to  be  of 
the  detective  sort,  —  quick  to  fasten  upon 
unattractive  and  suspicious  details.  It  grows 
charitable  and  broad  with  years,  the  biting 
commentsof  youth  are  gradually  tempered, 
and  sarcasm,  which  it  had  been  a  joy  to 
wield,  is  reserved  as  a  weapon  to  be  but 
rarely  used.  The  woman  is  equipped  for 
the  gentle,  genial  play  of  life  by  the  sharp- 
ness of  wits  and  eyes  that  she  learned  as  a 
girl. 

But  the  boy  on  emerging  from  school, 
where  he  has  been  so  single-minded  in  his 
pursuits,  soon  finds  that  he  is  deficient  in 
the  faculty  of  observation.  The  acknow- 
ledgment is  tacitly  made  to  him  by  the 
advisory  elder  world  that  in  this  one  vital 
respect  it  was  necessary  to  bring  him  up 
wrong  ;  and  he  is  recommended  now  to 
remedy  by  his  own  efforts  the  deficiency 
that  education  imposed  upon  him.   There 

[88  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

are  not  many  harder  tasks.  He  has  been 
so  bred  to  think  of  the  main  chance,  to 
concentrate  his  thoughts  upon  his  per- 
sonal work  and  business,  to  be  energetic, 
brisk,  and  active  along  one  line,  that  he 
is  unable  to  waste  time  to  advantage  ;  and 
when  he  is  idle,  it  is  with  an  unhappy  and 
unprofitable  restlessness.  He  cannot  grasp 
the  point  of  view,  the  whimsical,  detached, 
casual,  and  inconsequent  point  of  view  that 
makes  out  of  mere  observation  an  amuse- 
ment and  a  play. 

Thus,  in  the  matter  of  training  the  out- 
ward eye,  education  in  a  puzzled,  half- 
apologetic  way  submits  a  tardy  acknow- 
ledgment of  failure.  But  of  its  failure  to 
provide  exercise  for  the  inward  eye  be- 
fore which  passes  the  panorama  of  the 
unreal,  the  fanciful,  it  makes  a  boast.  It 
deplores  as  much  in  man  as  in  boy  the  ten- 
dency to  dream ;  unsympathetic  with  the 
inward  eye,  it  declares  the  day-dreamer  to 
have  a  mind  untrained,  if  not  indeed  dis- 
eased.   Coeval  with    the   admonition  not 

[89  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

to  stare  and  not  to  point  the  finger  is  the 
precept  not  to  let  the  thoughts  go  wool- 
gathering. How  smartly  comes  down  the 
pedagogue's  rule  for  inattention  in  the 
class !  How  despairing  is  the  mother's 
look  when  Johnny  gapes  with  open  mouth 
and  meat  on  fork,  stricken  all  forgetful 
of  his  food  !  There  is,  I  am  sure,  in  the 
scientific  spirit  now  prevailing  among  par- 
ents and  nurses  less  encouragement  than 
there  used  to  be  to  the  pleasant  delusions  of 
infancy.  Have  you  not  been  a  child  and  in- 
sisted on  hollowing  out  your  mashed  potato 
and  making  a  lake  of  gravy  in  the  crater  ? 
And  was  not  the  potato  spoiled  if  the  lake 
prematurely  burst  its  banks  ?  Also,  when 
you  had  your  oatmeal,  could  you  bear  it 
if  it  was  not  a  perfect  island, —  dry  on  top 
and  entirely  surrounded  by  cream?  My 
most  intense  antipathy  was  conceived  at 
the  age  of  seven  for  a  kind  lady  whom  I 
visited,  and  who  arranged  my  oatmeal  for 
me,  diligently  drenching  its  surface.  Now- 
adays, I  observe,  children  seem  unfamiliar 

[90] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

with  the  simple  diversions  that  I  remem- 
ber so  pleasantly.  It  is  partly,  perhaps, 
that  thev  are  exposed  to  new-fashioned 
breakfast  cereals  which  soak  up  cream 
before  imagination  can  draw  breath  ;  it  is 
partly  that  they  are  so  repeatedly  warned 
by  their  nurses  and  mammas  not  to  play 
with  their  food. 

The  atmosphere  of  discouragement  that 
surrounds  the  play  of  children  is  not  abated 
with  the  years.  The  enjoyment  of  dreams, 
the  building  of  castles  in  the  air,  the  es- 
caping from  the  facts  of  life,  especially 
from  the  unpleasant  facts,  to  beguile  one's 
self  upon  fancy  and  dalliance  are  disap- 
proved and  despised  ;  and  I  raise  up  my 
voice  in  protest.  What  a  real  and  blame- 
less pleasure,  I  exclaim,  it  is.  for  the  most 
of  us  to  imagine  ourselves  greater,  braver, 
finer  than  we  are  or  than  we  shall  ever 
be  !  Entering  a  shop  to  buy  a  neck- 
tie, one  may  perhaps  be  interrupting  the 
meditation  of  the  salesman  on  how  he 
should  act   if  he  were  President, — how 

[91  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

gracious  he  would  be,  and  benign  and 
lovable,  and  withal  how  inflexibly  inde- 
pendent and  in  crises  stern.  This  use  of 
his  imagination  doubtless  gives  him  great 
pleasure,  and  it  need  not  at  all  incapaci- 
tate him  for  selling  neckties.  The  factory 
girl,  watching  her  threads,  dreams  of  be- 
ing the  mill-owner's  daughter,  driving  in 
her  carriage,  and  living  in  the  big  house 
on  the  hill.  And  she  guides  her  threads 
as  unerringly,  as  steadfastly,  as  if  she  felt 
the  eyes  of  the  foreman  upon  her.  Per- 
haps it  would  be  nearer  the  usual  truth  to 
think  of  her  standing  thus  and  dreaming, 
not  of  a  bright  future  in  which  she  is  the 
centre,  but  of  one  that  holds  rest  and  ease 
and  pleasure  for  her  tired  mother  and  gay- 
ety  and  promise  for  little  brothers  and  sis- 
ters. And  is  one  to  be  chidden  for  dream- 
ing such  dreams  ? 

The  habit  is  pernicious,  I  grant,  if  it 
seizes  and  delays  one  upon  the  brink  of  ac- 
tion. Yet  truly  it  appears  to  me  that  those 
who   are   excessively   fond    of  imagining 

[  92  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

great  and  improbable  prospects  for  them- 
selves would  achieve  just  as  little  were  their 
love  of  these  visions  forever  set  at  rest. 
There  are  some  men  by  birth  and  tempera- 
ment fit  only  for  dreams ;  some  by  like  cir- 
cumstance fit  only  for  action ;  and  many 
more  normally  composed,  in  whom  the  ca- 
pacity for  each  exercise  might,  if  it  were 
permitted,  serve  to  offset  and  refresh  the 
other.  But  it  is  thought  feeble  or  unmanly 
to  avail  one's  self  of  any  such  means  of  re- 
habilitation; we  Americans,  after  our  day's 
work  is  done,  take  our  rest  in  further  ac- 
tion, our  relaxation  in  excitement.  Yet 
were  the  many  thousands  for  whom  the 
theatre  furnishes  the  most  frequent  even- 
ing's amusement  to  stroll  or  sit  out  under 
the  stars,  entertaining  such  Thoughts  and 
dreams  as  come,  they  would  put  their  souls 
and  minds  into  better  order  for  the  slumber 
of  the  night  and  for  the  work  of  the  next 
daye 

Perhaps  the  utterance  seems  inconsist- 
ent in  one  who  contends  that  we  do  not 

[  93  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

play  enough.  Indeed,  the  popularity  of  the 
theatre  at  the  present  time  would  no  doubt 
be  the  first  fact  advanced  to  refute  the  crit- 
icism. The  point  is  made  that  everybody 
goes  to  the  theatre  nowadays ;  the  people 
who  in  a  past  generation  would  have  been 
shocked  by  the  suggestion  sit  now  in  the 
front  row.  Even  the  clergy  have  acquired 
a  habit  of  recommending  plays  to  their 
congregations.  To  be  sure,  these  are  gen- 
erally the  poorest  possible  plays  ;  never- 
theless, it  is  an  indication  of  the  yielding 
on  every  side  to  the  universal  imperative 
demand  for  amusement. 

Thousands  of  flexible  dancing  girls  with 
shrill  voices,  thousands  of  effeminate,  ca- 
pering young  men,  pass  in  review  each 
season  before  a  city's  audience,  and  go 
twirling  and  grimacing  on.  The  perform- 
ances of  these  constitute  perhaps  the  main 
interest  for  the  great  multitude  of  theatre- 
goers. Feeble  wit,  clumsy  and  shabby 
humor,  meretricious  music,  are  impu- 
dently combined  ;  and  the  audience,  con- 

[94] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

vinced  by  the   tinsel  of  the  stage,   titters 
and  listens  and  applauds. 

The  audience  is  amused;  we  must  face 
that  fact.  And  nothing  could  more  elo- 
quently demonstrate  the  helplessness  of  the 
ordinary  American  when  withdrawn  from 
his  games  or  his  sports  and  confronted 
with  the  problem  of  amusing  himself.  His 
eyes  can  be  diverted  only  by  the  abnormal, 
the  bizarre  ;  the  natural  processes  of  life 
are  dull  and  tedious  to  his  failing  imagi- 
nation. Hence  the  theatre  is  the  resort, 
the  amusement,  of  the  wholly  unimagina- 
tive, of  those  who  need  to  have  the  pic- 
ture spread  before  them  in  all  its  details,  so 
that  they  may  comprehend  it  with  merely 
the  automatic  effort  of  the  senses.  Unim- 
aginative, they  have  no  pleasure  in  read- 
ing, unless  it  is  a  flat-footed  kind  of  fic- 
tion, over  which  they  may  drowse  with  no 
danger  of  losing  the  thread.  They  cannot 
call  up  clear  visions  in  their  own  minds, 
nor  can  they  grasp  them  from  the  pictur- 
esque and  vivid  page.    A  mental  sluggish- 

[  95  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

ness  besets  them.  Removed  from  the  ex- 
citement of  games  and  sports,  they  are 
more  often  stultified  than  stimulated  by 
play. 

There  is  this  to  be  said  of  Americans, 
however :  because  they  have  been  well 
trained  in  methods  of  work,  they  get  per- 
haps as  much  enjoyment  as  any  people 
out  of  the  periods  of  play  that  work  itself 
affords.  In  purely  mechanical  labor  there 
are  no  such  periods,  and  that  is  why  all 
those  engaged  in  it  should  be  permitted 
and  encouraged  to  occupy  their  minds 
with  dreams,  and  their  eyes  with  what  is 
characteristic  and  interesting  in  the  ordi- 
nary movement  of  life.  But  in  any  work  de- 
manding mental  initiative  or  action  there 
are  sure  to  be  times  of  pure  delight.  This 
comes  partly  from  the  consciousness  of 
success  in  solving  the  problem  on  which 
one  has  been  engaged  ;  the  attitude  of 
genial  congratulation  and  special  affection 
which  one  assumes  then  toward  one's  self 
holds  a  histrionic  quality  akin  to  play.   Yet 

[96] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

this    is   unimportant   compared   with  the 
hopefulness  and  zest  of  the  actual  perform- 
ance, when    for  very  interest    one  cannot 
have  success  or  failure  too  closely  in  view. 
The  plotting  of  a  large  financial  scheme 
and  the  putting  of  it  into  execution;   the 
writing  at  a  man's  best  power  of  a  dramatic 
climax;   the  grasping  of  the  feature  that 
will  give  a  picture  its  subtle,  notable  dis- 
tinction, and  the  painting  it  in  with  a  few 
creative  strokes  ;  the  first  clear  view  to  the 
end  in  an  architectural  problem,  and  the 
instant  leaping  to  achieve  out  of  common- 
place and  mere  convenience  beauty, —  these 
and  the  like  experiences  are  for  thinking 
and   active   men    the    most    incomparable 
play.    Detained  from  finishing  or  from  be- 
ginning the  work  that  beckons  joyously, 
one  chafes  with  the  impatience  of  the  boy 
in  the  schoolroom  on  the  day  of  his  cham- 
pionship game  ;   released,  one  plunges  into 
the  toil  with  the  thrill  and  elation  of  the 
boy  rushing  to  the  strife. 

Thepatheticandyet  the  eternally  cheer- 

[  97] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

ful  and  assuring  paradox  is  this, —  that 
dehght  in  performance  by  no  means  guar- 
antees excellence  of  work.  One  may  hum- 
bly imagine  how  Shakespeare  exulted  in 
Mark  Antony's  funeral  address,  striking  it 
off  perhaps  in  a  couple  of  glorious  im- 
mortal hours,  now  dipping  his  quill  with 
a  leisurely  smile  at  his  own  cunning,  now 
writing  with  a  concentrated  passion.  Yet 
it  is  our  privilege  to  know  that  Alberta 
Smitherson — spoken  of  as  the  coming 
authoress  —  made  similar  demonstrations, 
and  felt  something  of  the  same  emotion, 
when  she  composed  the  story  that  has  just 
been  rejected  by  the  **  Boudoir  Magazine." 
It  is  certainly  a  bountiful  provision  of 
nature  that  in  the  capacity  of  men  for  en- 
joyment and  delight  there  is  no  such  wide 
disparity  as  in  their  power  for  creation  and 
achievement. 

Unquestionably,  the  nobler  the  work, 
the  more  refreshing  must  be  its  aspects  to 
him  whom  it  engrosses.  It  strengthens  a 
man  to  feel  that,  whether  he  wins  or  loses, 

[98  ] 


WORK   AND    PLAY 

his  labor  is  not  undertaken  simply  for  his 
own  profit,  and  that  the  question  is  a  far 
greater  one  than  merely  that  of  success 
or  failure.  The  old  English  astronomer, 
Halley,  was  one  of  the  sublime  among  the 
world's  workers ;  yet  exceptional  as  is  his 
story,  it  is  only  typical  of  the  true  men 
of  science  of  every  age.  He  was  born  in 
1656  ;  the  last  transit  of  Venus  had  taken 
place  in  1639,  the  next  would  not  occur 
until  1 76 1 .  Yet  it  was  this  phenomenon 
that  engaged  his  attention;  he  sought  to 
ascertain  what  astronomers  might  learn 
from  the  celestial  happening  that  he  had 
never  seen  and  could  never  see.  As  the 
result  of  his  study,  he  left  accurate  calcu- 
lations and  directions  which  should  enable 
the  skilled  observer  of  a  transit  of  Venus 
to  deduce  from  that  brief  event  the  dis- 
tance of  the  earth  from  the  sun,  the  mag- 
nitudes of  the  planetary  orbits,  indeed,  the 
scale  of  the  whole  solar  system,  —  of  all 
w^hich  matters  the  world  was  then  in  ig- 
norance.   And  when  the  transit  occurred, 

[  99  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

astronomers  who  had  stationed  themselves 
for  it  in  Otaheite  and  in  Europe  followed 
theinstructionsthat  Halleyhad  bequeathed 
them,  and  hence  were  able  to  make  a  con- 
tribution to  human  knowledge  impressive 
enough  to  rank  with  the  discoveries  of 
Newton  and  Kepler  and  Galileo.  The 
man  whose  fertile  mind  had  prepared  the 
way,  and  who  knew  that  he  would  be 
silent  in  his  grave  years  before  his  theory 
could  be  put  to  the  test,  had  busied  him- 
self gayly  and  happily  in  the  unhnishable 
task ;  no  doubt,  when  he  perceived  whither 
his  investigations  were  leading  him,  he 
could  not  have  been  more  excited,  more 
eager,  had  there  been  a  transit  of  Venus 
scheduled  for  the  next  morning.  And  let 
us  make  mention,  too,  of  those  worthy 
followers  who  spent  years  preparing  for  the 
rare  happening  of  a  few  hours,  taking 
practice  observations  of  a  fictitious  sun  and 
a  fictitious  Venus,  living  and  working,  it 
might  seem,  to  see  the  transit  once,  and 
again  eight  years  later,  with  the  overshad- 

[   100  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

owing  dread  that  cloudy  weather  might 
set  all  at  naught  and  the  phenomenon  be 
unseen  of  mortal  eyes  for  more  than  an- 
other century. 

Life  is  both  a  usurer  and  a  spendthrift. 
The  weak,  the  maimed,  the  toilers  under 
crushing  burdens  of  poverty,  disease,  and 
despair,  who  are  held  to  the  most  exacting 
interest  on  the  loan  of  their  few  troubled 
earthly  years,  often  meet  the  obligation 
with  a  more  abiding  conscience  and  honor 
than  those  dowered  at  their  birth  and 
attended  always  by  a  lavish  fortune.  We 
may  not  seek  for  the  equity  in  an  arrange- 
ment which  imposes  upon  one  man  work 
that  is  all  drudgery,  and  on  another,  who 
has  the  implements  of  play  at  command, 
work  that  is,  much  of  it,  play.  There  is 
no  cant  so  unthinking  and  false  as  that 
which  urges  every  man  to  work  for  the 
joy  of  working,  —  and  which  is  cant  even 
though  it  be  uttered  in  stirring  verse.  In 
a  city  building  there  are  seven  men  em- 
ployed whose  work  is  this  :   on  Monday 

[  loi  ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

morning  they  begin  on  the  ground  floor, 
swabbing  corridors,  washing  windows, 
polishing  brass  and  iron;  and  it  takes  them 
precisely  till  Saturday  night  to  progress  in 
this  cleansing  manner  —  literally  on  their 
knees  —  to  the  top  of  the  building.  Then 
on  Monday  morning  again  they  begin  on 
the  ground  floor,  each  one  with  a  fresh 
cake  of  soap  and  with  no  variation  in  the 
week's  task  before  him.  It  does  not  seem 
to  me  possible  for  a  man  to  work  thus  for 
the  joy  of  working. 

Yet  it  is  just  this  kind  of  dull,  necessary 
obedience  to  an  order  or  a  routine  that 
constitutes  the  work  of  nearly  all  human- 
ity. Under  such  conditions,  any  message 
to  man  that  urges  upon  him  the  pure  joy 
of  labor  must  have  a  very  complacent  and 
superior  sound.  If  ever  there  lived  a  boot- 
black whose  chief  happiness  was  in  pro- 
ducing the  most  lustrous  possible  shine  on 
the  shoe  of  his  patron,  what  a  poor-spirited 
little  prig  he  must  have  been  !  how  un- 
worthy beside  his  confreres  who  rejoiced 

[    102    ] 


WORK    AND    PLAY 

to  gamble  away  their  pennies  in  the  al- 
ley !  It  is,  of  course,  not  wrong  for  the 
bootblack  to  take  pleasure  in  the  lustre  of 
his  shine,  or  for  the  clerk  to  have  pride  in 
the  neatness  of  his  page  ;  but  if  life  holds 
for  them  no  other  pleasure  quite  so  keen, 
they  have  lost  the  vital  spark  of  manhood. 
And  therefore  it  should  be  urged  upon  all 
those  who  perform  the  somnolent,  me- 
chanical labor  of  long  hours,  day  after  day, 
listlessly  and  well,  as  most  of  the  world's 
work  is  performed,  to  dream  dreams  and 
see  visions  and  hearken  even  in  the  midst 
of  their  tasks  for  some  passing  w^hisper 
from  the  spirit  of  play. 


IV 
THE  SiMOKING-ROOM 


THE  SMOKING-ROOM 

The  sanctity  of  masculine  institutions  is 
assailed.  The  male  being's  exclusive  right 
to  cast  the  ballot  and  to  hold  the  office  is 
challenged;  with  characteristic  chivalry  — 
in  America  —  he  lends  to  the  challenger 
an  indulgent  ear  ;  with  characteristic  gen- 
erosity he  makes  unessential  concessions. 
His  privilege  of  drinking  where  and  when 
he  pleases  —  a  privilege  which  he  had 
enjoyed  since  remote  antiquity — is  cur- 
tailed; it  is  even  sought  to  deny  him  the 
seclusion  appropriate  to  potation.  The 
Boston  barroom,  for  instance,  is  deprived 
of  the  shutter  and  the  curtain  —  ordinary 
decencies  of  life.  The  canteen  is  abol- 
ished ;  there  is  no  Sunday  beer.  A  mighty 
organization  of  persons  of  her  own  sex,  un- 
mindful of  the  services  she  has  rendered 
to  literature,  seeks  to  expunge  the  British 
barmaid.    The  W.  C.  T.  U.  — defined  by 

[  107  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

some  one  as  the  We  See  To  You  Society 
—  flourishes  the  lash.  Everywhere  woman 
is  awake  and  vigilant  —  impressed  as  never 
before  with  the  truth  that  her  mission  is 
man. 

Easy-going  and  good-natured  as  man 
is,  he  has  some  power  of  resistance.  Even 
though  menaced  by  so  formidable  a  foe,  he 
feels  no  alarm  for  the  future.  He  is  secure 
in  his  independence  so  long  as  his  possession 
of  the  smoking-room  is  not  disputed.  The 
function  of  this  institution  has  been  to  ex- 
pand and  enlarge  the  man,  to  encourage 
expression  and  self-revelation,  to  promote 
in  him  the  sense  of  latitude  and  freedom  . 
which  his  unruly  nature  craves,  and  with- 
out proper  nourishment  of  which  he 
droops  mentally  and  morally.  For  rugged 
growth  he  requires  much  unhampered  in- 
terchange with  persons  of  his  own  coarse 
fibre.  Women  charge  the  atmosphere  at 
once  with  the  electricity  of  criticism, — 
to  which  the  juvenile  is  of  course  most 
sensitive.    A  personable  young  gentleman 

[  io8  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

recognizes  instinctively  the  critical  spirit 
and  instinctively  seeks  to  propitiate  it  by 
engaging  behavior.  He  may  be  quite  suc- 
cessful in  his  effort,  but  none  the  less  does 
he  require  a  refuge  where  he  may  soothe 
his  agitated  nerves,  where  he  may  discard 
self-consciousness  in  the  presence  of  ex- 
perience. What  the  young  man  needs  most 
is  contact  with  his  elders;  likewise  do  the 
elders  need  contact  with  the  young.  No- 
where have  the  opportunities  for  this  been 
so  great  as  in  the  smoking-room.  I  am  told 
that  on  certain  new  ocean  liners  women 
are  privileged  to  invade  this  apartment. 
It  is  an  invasion  that  can  never  prosper. 
The  feminine  sense  of  propriety  is  stronger 
than  the  feminine  sense  of  curiosity  —  for- 
tunately for  the  human  race  ;  after  an  in- 
spection from  the  doorway  the  brethren 
will  be  left  in  undisturbed  possession. 
Otherwise,  the  brag,  the  broad  humorous 
narrative,  the  acute  discussion  must  be 
conducted  in  a  cautious  undertone ;  the 
feminine  presence  is  bound  to  devitalize 

[  109  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

the  company  ;  and  the  flavor  which  with 
adventurous  interest  the  woman  is  eager 
to  taste,  she  dissipates  by  her  intrusion. 
No  gain  in  upholstery  could  ever  offset 
the  loss  of  that  privacy,  that  atmosphere 
which  causes  strangers  to  confide  in  one 
another,  which  induces  fellowship  and 
provides  for  enlargement  by  observation 
and  experience.  Let  rawness  and  formal- 
ity of  furnishing  prevail,  let  the  seats  be 
clothed  in  gaudy  coverings  and  fixed  in 
an  unbeguiling  intimacy,  let  the  carpets 
be  adorned  with  numerous  nickel-plated, 
shining  utensils  —  in  spite  of  all  its  ugliness 
the  smoking-room  is  not  to  be  superseded 
by  any  apartment  which  makes  an  appeal 
to  the  feminine  taste  and  welcomes  the 
feminine  person. 

The  total  abstainer  may  best  record, 
with  a  discriminating  pen,  the  progress  of 
the  banquet  at  which  good  wine  flows 
freely ;  he  better  than  those  whose  blood 
and  brains  are  stirred  by  drink  may  sep- 
arate  the   stages   and  bear   away   a   clear 

[  no  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

memory  of  broadening  festivity.  Those 
involved  in  subordinate  parts  of  a  great  ac- 
tion make  the  least  illuminating  of  chroni- 
clers, except  in  so  far  as  their  own  small 
contribution  to  the  final  fact  is  concerned. 
The  non-smoker  who  yet  frequents  the 
smoking-room  has,  in  the  same  way,  bet- 
ter opportunities  for  gathering  data  for  a 
well-rounded  commentary,  one  that  shall 
embrace  all  the  phases  of  smoking-room 
life.  The  man  who  smokes  is  too  soon 
submerged  into  a  phase  himself;  for  the 
commentator  there  is  required  a  certain 
detachment  and  isolation.  Therefore  am 
I  emboldened  to  offer  my  commentary. 

One  who  sits  in  a  smoking-room  and 
does  not  smoke  is  at  a  serious  disadvantage 
socially.  Many  a  pleasant  acquaintance 
I  have  seen  made  over  an  interchange  of 
opinions  as  to  the  relative  merits  of  certain 
brands  of  cigarettes  or  tobacco  ;  this  open- 
ing of  opportunity  has  never  been  mine. 
One  is  congenitally  a  non-smoker,  just  as 
one  is  congenitally,  it  may  be,  a  drunkard. 

[  "I  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

We  are  all  predisposed  to  certain  habits  and 
vices,  and  the  vice  of  not  smoking  is  one 
for  which  I  have  inherited  a  predilection. 
Sometimes,  when  I  observe  the  pleasures 
and  advantages  which  other  men  derive 
from  the  slight  embellishment  of  their 
breathing  processes,  I  am  tempted  to  rebel 
against  the  ancestral  impulse.  Indeed  the 
non-smoker  is  in  conversation  a  man  with- 
out resources;  he  presents  a  naked  and 
embarrassed  front;  his  every  effort  is  noted 
and  charged  against  him ;  each  shade  of 
anxiety  or  apprehension,  each  glow  of 
hope  is  advertised  upon  his  face.  He  is 
a  frank  and  emotional  exhibit ;  whereas  a 
cigar  in  the  mouth  can  impart  shrewdness 
to  a  stupid  countenance,  self-possession  to 
one  that  should  be  disturbed,  an  air  of 
mystery  to  the  blank — in  short,  he  who 
has  the  art  of  smoking  has  always  at  hand 
a  mask.  Yet  if  there  are  disadvantages  and 
humiliations  in  being  a  non-smoker,  there 
are  also  immunities.  The  non-smoker  pre- 
sents, it  seems,  the  more,  forbidding  aspect 

[  "2  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

to  the  bore.  If  he  is  of  a  contemplative 
habit  of  mind,  he  is  not  hkely  to  have  his 
musings  interrupted  by  unwelcome  de- 
mands upon  his  attention. 

This,  at  least,  is  a  logical  conclusion,  yet 
a  recent  experience  compels  me  to  admit 
that  the  statement  is  recklessly  complacent. 
I  was  occupying  a  seat  in  a  well-filled 
smoking-car ;  when  a  man  got  in  at  a  way 
station  and  came  down  the  aisle,  I  made 
room  for  him.  Being  interested  in  a  news- 
paper, I  gave  him  no  attention  until  he  said 
loudly  and  abruptly,  — 

"  How  are  you  going  to  vote  ? " 

I  replied  that  I  was  not  going  to  vote 
for  a  conspicuously  odious  candidate. 

"You're  not?"  he  shouted  in  amaze- 
ment ;  then  he  added  confidentially  yet 
loudly,  "  Say,  I  'm  not,  either.  Why 
should  I  vote  for  him  ?  Tell  me  that ; 
why  should  I  vote  for  him  ?  What 's  he 
ever  done,  I'd  like  to  know.?  Answer 
me  that,  will  you?" 

By  that  time  I  had  concluded  that  this 

[  1^3  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

conversational  gentleman  was  in  liquor, 
and  I  returned  to  the  perusal  of  my  news- 
paper. He  continued  in  a  voice  which 
drew  the  attention  of  all  the  passengers  in 
the  vicinity, — 

*<  Why  should  I  vote  for  him  ?  He  'j 
not  a  married  man.  He  's  got  no  children. 
Lives  for  himself  alone.  I  'm  a  married 
man — wife  and  six  children  —  and  I 
support  'em  and  educate  'em  too.  Why 
should  I  vote  for  a  man  with  no  responsi- 
bilities?   Answer  me  that — if yrju please!'' 

The  demand  was  so  emphatic,  the  sub- 
sequent pause  so  intense,  that  I  found  it 
difficult  to  fix  my  mind  on  what  I  was 
reading.  I  was  aware  that  the  public  in- 
terest in  the  situation  was  becoming  more 
marked. 

"  He  says  he  stands  for  temperance.  So 
do  I  stand  for  temperance.  Temperance 
is  a  mighty  good  thing  —  always  sup- 
ported it.  But  —  it  can  be  carried  too  far. 
That 's  what  he  forgets  ;  it 's  a  good  thing, 
but  it  can  be  carried  too  far." 

[   "4] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

I  churlishly  refrained  from  acquiescing 
in  this  sentiment.  He  was  silent  for  a  few 
moments — surveying  me,  I  was  aware, 
with  extreme  disfavor. 

**  Ain't  you  interested  in  what  I  'm  say- 
ing ?  "  he  asked  with  loud  defiance. 

There  was  no  doubt  of  the  interest  of 
the  others. 
"No,"  I  said. 

He  did  not  reply ;  he  turned  his  large 
bulk  a  little  more  towards  me,  and  I  knew 
that  his  eyes  were  coursing  impudently  up 
and  down  my  frame.  It  was  extremely 
difficult  to  keep  my  mind  on  the  news- 
paper article.  I  glanced  up  and  saw  the 
faces  of  many  men  turned  towards  me, 
grinning,  intent,  joyously  apprehensive.  I 
resumed  my  reading. 

"  Say,  do  you  know  what  I  think  of 

you  r 

Now  I  knew  perfectly  well  that  he 
thought  my  manners  were  bad  ;  but  I 
said,  without  raising  my  eyes,  ^*  No,  and 
I  don't  care  to  know." 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

The  silence  that  ensued  was  ominous. 
I  felt  that  he  was  gathering  his  powers  of 
invective  and  that  my  fellow  passengers 
were  hanging  over  the  backs  of  their  seats, 
hungry  for  his  vituperative  words.  At  last 
speech  came. 

"  I  am  going  to  tell  you  what  I  think 
of  you.  You  may  not  like  it,  but  I  'm 
going  to  tell  you  just  the  same."  He 
kept  me  in  suspense  for  a  dramatic  mo- 
ment. And  then,  in  the  most  measured, 
honeyed  voice,  '*  I  think  that  I  would 
trust  you  with  my  life.  I  think  that  you 
are  the  finest,  the  most  gtnuine  gentleman 
I  ever  saw.  I  think  I  would  like  to  stand 
up  and  say  to  the  people  in  this  car  that 
here  is  a  gentleman  I  never  saw  before, 
but  I  would  trust  him  with  my  life. 
That's  what  I  think  about  you." 

I  thanked  him.  But  he  was  in  that  ob- 
sessed and  obstinate  condition  which  de- 
mands reiterated  utterance.  He  adorned 
me  once  more  with  adulation,  and  men 
rose  from  their  seats  and  gathered  round 

[  ii6  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

us  in  delight.  I  was  presented  to  them  as 
the  charming  unknown.  When  I  left  the 
train  —  which  was  fortunately  soon  —  my 
admirer  accompanied  me  to  the  door  and 
bade  me  good-by  from  the  platform. 

But  this  experience  was  for  me  excep- 
tional ;   ordinarily  I  seem  to  repel  rather 
than  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  smoker. 
I  have  persuaded  myself  that  there  is  no 
unflattering  explanation  of  this,  but  rather 
that  he  who  is  without  interest  in  tobacco 
lacks  a  primary  and  sympathetic  interest 
for  the  lover  of  tobacco,  and  as  an  uncon- 
genial companion  is  ignored.    So  he  is  left 
free  to  meditate  and  to  observe  and  to  lis- 
ten.   And  although  he  is  himself  seldom 
the  direct  recipient,  he  is  made  aware  that 
confidential  and  intimate  bits  of  biography 
are  being  transmitted  in  corners  and  across 
tables ;   it  entertains  him  to  note  the  pro- 
cesses which  lead  so  rapidly  to  such  a  con- 
summation.   Subtleties  do  not  often  pre- 
vail in  the  smoking-room  —  and  usually 
it  is  the  simple-minded,   not  the  subtle, 

[  ^^7] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

who  seeks  a  confidant.  So  abrupt  are  the 
introductions  to  the  engrossing  theme  that 
sometimes  the  eavesdropper  is  astonished 
at  the  progress  which  in  five  minutes  may 
be  made  by  two  well-disposed  individuals. 
I  was  once  reading  in  the  smoking-room 
of  a  steamer  ;  a  stout  gentleman  with  a 
placid,  good-humored  face  relapsed  into 
the  seat  beside  me  and  lighted  a  cigar. 
He  became  in  all  respects  at  once  a  figure 
of  such  comatose  contentment  that  I  as- 
sumed speech  would  disturb  him ;  I  con- 
tinued therefore  with  my  reading,  and  he 
of  course  made  no  advances.  Presently  a 
dyspeptic,  morose-looking,  thin  man  took 
the  seat  on  the  other"  side  of  him,  a  most 
unpromising  neighbor.  But  immediately 
the  stout  gentleman  gave  indications  that 
coma  was  no  longer  contentment ;  he  was 
stirring  with  an  interest,  an  active  desire. 
**  Sir,''  he  said,  intercepting  the  other, 
who  was  reaching  for  a  match,  *'  before 
you  light  that  cigar,  would  you  do  me  the 
honor  to  try  this   of  mine  ?    It 's  a  spe- 

[  ii8  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

cial  importation,  and  I  regard  it  as  the 
finest  cigar  I  ever  tasted." 

The  thin  man's  suspicious  glance  could 
detect  nothing  but  benevolence  in  that 
beaming  face. 

"  You  're  very  good ;  "  he  accepted  the 
engaging  cigar.  *'  It  looks  very  superior ; 
I  '11  be  glad  to  try  it." 

The  fat  gentleman  watched  the  benefi- 
ciary during  the  first  savoring  puffs  with 
infantile  eagerness. 

*'Ah,"  he  exclaimed  in  fine  good  hu- 
mor after  a  moment  of  anxiety,  *'  I  knew 
I  was  n't  mistaken  ;  I  knew  you  were  a 
judge  of  cigars.  I  can  always  tell  from  a 
man's  look  if  he  knows  cigars." 

"  Very  perceptive,"  said  the  thin  man. 
"  A  most  excellent  cigar." 

"  Nothing  quite  like  a  good  cigar  after 
dinner  in  your  library,  with  a  wife  sitting 
there  that  doesn't  mind  the  smoke,"  ven- 
tured the  fat  man. 

The  thin  man  nodded ;  he  was  a  reluct- 
ant talker. 

[  1^9] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOxM 

**  Ever  since  my  wife's  death,  smoking  's 
not  been  the  same  to  me."  The  fat  man 
sighed.  '*  I  still  enjoy  it,  but  it  ain't  the 
same.    You're  married,  I  presume?" 

-Yes." 

"  Any  children.?" 

-Two." 

-  I  'm  not  so  fortunate.  Been  married 
twice,  but  no  children.  I  heard  it  excel- 
lently well  expressed  the  other  day,  —  a 
man's  wife  is  the  bond,  the  children  are 
the  coupons." 

-That's  one  way  of  looking  at  it,  cer- 
tainly," said  the  thin  man. 

-  I  always  carry  a  photograph  of  my 
wife  —  my  second,"  observed  the  fat  man 
presently.  -  I  used  to  carry  it  in  my  watch, 
but  I  found  it  was  getting  scratched,  so  I 
had  an  envelope  made  for  it ;  I  keep  it  in 
that  now.    I  'd  like  to  show  it  to  you." 

I  expected  him  to  search  in  his  bosom  ; 
he  drew  the  picture,  however,  from  his 
hip  pocket.  The  thin  man  took  it  gin- 
gerly, and  inspected  it. 

[  120  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

"Oh  —  yes  —  very  nice  looking  lady," 
he  said  at  last. 

The  proprietor  of  the  photograph  was 
satisfied,  and  as  he  returned  it  to  its  en- 
velope and  then  to  its  abiding-place,  he 
remarked,  — 

"  She  was  the  mate  for  me  —  if  ever  a 
man  had  one.  My  second.  Died  six  years 
ago.  I  've  never  had  any  desire  to  find  a 
successor.  Oh,  I  look  at  the  ladies  some- 
times and  mention  the  possibility  to  my- 
self, but  they  none  of 'em  measure  up  with 
her  —  so  I  shake  my  head,  no,  no." 

"  Well,"  said  the  thin  man  simply,  '*  I  '  m 
satisfied  with  my  first  wife.  I  hope  I  '11 
never  have  to  think  about  a  second." 

So  he  had  a  human  side  after  all  ;  his 
unresponsiveness  had  been  due  probably 
to  excess  of  caution.  He  and  the  fat  man 
sat  together  often  in  the  smoking-room 
thereafter ;  indeed  if  one  entered  and  did 
not  see  the  other,  a  look  hesitating  and 
disconsolate  would  cross  his  face.  Tobacco 
and   domesticity    had  created  a  bond.     I 

[  '^^  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

know  not  what  further  intimacies  were 
revealed  ;  generally  the  fat  man  was  the 
talker,  the  thin  man  the  listener  ;  they  did 
not  join  in  any  of  the  card  games,  they  did 
not  contribute  to  the  ribald  narratives  that 
often  delighted  a  corner  of  the  smoking- 
room  ;  they  drew  about  themselves  a  little 
company  of  middle-aged,  quiet  persons,  on 
whom  the  fat  man  beamed  with  the  most 
unfailing  good  humor.  Among  them 
much  sound  doctrine  was  uttered,  truisms 
and  platitudes  were  given  a  solemn  hear- 
ing ;  but  always  there  was  something  naive 
and  quaint  in  their  seriousness.  Occasion- 
ally they  engaged  in  literary  discussion. 

"  Multum  in  parvo,"  said  the  fat  man 
once.  "That's  my  conception  of  Shake- 
speare.   Multum  in  parvo." 

*'  Shakespeare  or  the  man  that  wrote 
the  plays,''  remarked  a  heathen. 

"There  was  a  fellow  out  to  Detroit 
published  a  book  saying  Shakespeare  was 
all  a  cipher,"  commented  the  fat  man. 
"  The    masterpiece  of  English  literature, 

[  1^2  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

according  to  this  Detroit  gentleman,  was 
just  a  blind —  turned  out  to  cover  up  the 
tracks  of  the  scandals  of  the  time  !  Well, 
I  don't  believe  it.  And  as  for  saying  Bacon 
wrote  Shakespeare — you  might  as  well 
compare  an  elephant  and  a  graceful  ga- 
zelle—  or  Grover  Cleveland's  orations  and 
Lincoln's  Gettysburg  speech." 

"  Ah,"  said  the  heathen,  ''  but  how  do 
you  account  —  " 

And  there  the  argument  began.  And 
where  an  argument  begins,  interest  for  all 
except  the  two  disputants  usually  ends. 
Quite  properly  argument  is  not  popular 
in  the  smoking-room.  The  person  who 
delights  in  controversy  seldom  enlarges  his 
audience.  Once  his  tendency  is  revealed, 
people  drift  away  from  him  to  those  whose 
forte  is  narrative.  Or  in  preference  they 
will  even  sit  about  and  watch  a  man  play- 
ing solitaire. 

The  story-teller  is  the  magnet  of  the 
smoking-room.  Strangers  making  the 
acquaintance  of  one  another  desire  to  be 

[  123  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

entertained  and  to  be  thought  entertaining. 
Narrative  is  the  resource  of  most  men  in 
this  situation;  only  a  few  are  endowed 
with  the  talent  for  casual,  inconsequent, 
amusing  talk,  spontaneous,  illuminating 
comment,  the  tact  and  restraint  for  letting 
pass  a  tempting  but  inappropriate  oppor- 
tunity, and  the  intellectual  opulence  that 
can  in  an  exigency  provide  a  flow —  that 
does  not  merely  leak  out  in  occasional 
sparkling  interjections.  I  think  that  men 
who  combine  these  happy  qualities  are 
often  deficient  in  the  embracing  geniality 
which  is  essential  to  leadership  in  the 
smoking-room,  and  that  they  may  sit  sub- 
ordinate and  overlooked.  They  shine  per- 
haps more  brightly  in  other  realms. 

As  his  intimacy  with  his  auditor  in- 
creases, the  story-teller  tends  to  introduce 
personal  experience  into  his  narratives  ; 
they  become  less  often  the  small  change 
of  current  anecdotes,  more  and  more  often 
the  vehicle  for  self-revelation  or  advertise- 
ment.   One  cannot  sit  long  in  the  smok- 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

ing-room  without  hearing  raised  some- 
where the  bragging  voice.  There  are  a 
vast  number  of  men  who  never  outgrow 
the  boyish  wish  to  impress  the  stranger, 
who  even  predicate  upon  success  in  this 
matter  the  possibility  of  maintaining  in- 
tercourse with  him ;  they  must  in  the 
beginning  assert  their  importance.  Once 
they  have  demonstrated  that,  they  may 
turn  out  to  be  modest  persons  enough, 
neither  self-centred  nor  disposed  to  mo- 
nopolize the  talk.  There  was  a  man  I 
once  knew  who  could  not  be  an  hour  in 
the  company  of  any  one  without  impart- 
ing the  information,  shyly  and  awkwardly, 
that  he  had  won  a  medal  of  honor  for 
bravery  in  the  Civil  War.  Having  liber- 
ated this  fact,  he  would  relapse  into  his 
unobtrusive,  quiet  personality,  receive  the 
ideas  of  others  with  humility,  venture  his 
own  in  a  deprecating  way  —  a  submissive 
soul,  conscious  always  of  his  limitations. 
Once  in  his  life  it  had  befallen  him  to 
achieve  something  supreme ;   thereafter  he 

[  1^5  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

had  served,  perhaps,  a  "faithful  failure." 
It  seemed  fitting  enough  that  he  should 
proclaim  his  solitary  triumph,  if  he  chose, 
and  so  protect  himself  from  what  would 
otherwise  inevitably  be  a  slighting  estima- 
tion, perhaps  exclusion.  The  ordinarily 
successful  man  is  as  apt  to  recommend 
himself  by  similar  methods ;  but  as  his 
achievement  is  of  a  more  conventional 
sort,  allusion  to  it  may  be  more  gracefully 
brought  about.  That  he  enjoys  a  large 
manner  of  life,  or  that  he  numbers  persons 
of  title  or  celebrity  among  his  friends,  or 
that  he  is  improving  an  already  prosperous 
business,  he  may  indicate  with  a  certain 
indirectness  of  which  the  Civil  War  hero 
could  seldom  avail  himself.  The  man 
who  resorts  to  such  methods  for  the  pro- 
motion of  his  social  interests,  in  the  smok- 
ing-room or  elsewhere,  must  often  be 
troubled  by  a  dim  perception  that  his 
capital  is  small.  His  actual  achievement 
on  which  he  prides  himself,  to  which  he 
refers   for  guarantee,  may  be   a    constant 

[  1^6  ] 


THE    SxMOKING-ROOM 

producer  of  revenue,  yet  as  an  achievement 
be  as  momentary,  as  obsolete  as  the  vet- 
eran's act  of  valor.  The  business  man's 
success  is  often  based  on  one  admirable 
creative  episode,  let  us  say  ;  thereafter  it 
declines  upon  inglorious  routine.  And  the 
early  confidence  that  is  shared  with  the 
stranger  as  to  income  or  imposing  intima- 
cies with  the  great  may  incidentally  pro- 
claim a  rather  shrinking,  shame-faced  con- 
sciousness of  subsequent  inadequacy.  The 
feeling  that  one  must  put  one's  best  foot 
forward  and  if  possible  get  a  running  start, 
imparts  an  aggressive  demeanor  to  some 
essentially  cautious  and  conservative  souls. 
So  if  one's  impression  of  the  smoking-room 
is  of  a  place  reverberating  with  the  inor- 
dinate self-glorification  of  its  occupants  — 
as  sometimes  is  the  case —  let  it  be  charita- 
bly remembered  that  though  the  mouth 
be  bold  and  blatant,  a  heart  that  is  anxious 
of  acceptance  is  often  throbbing  in  the 
throat. 

Sometimes  indeed  the  brag  is  so  ingen- 

•         [  ^^7  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

uous  and  so  conjoined  with  confession  as 
to  be  quite  disarming.  A  big  man  of  the 
type  of  the  prosperous  barkeeper  —  dia- 
mond rings  and  shirt-stud,  stubbly  pompa- 
dour hair,  heavy  red  jowls,  and  little  eyes 
—  was,  on  a  return  trip  from  Europe, 
expressing  his  bewilderment  at  the  Amer- 
ican eagerness  for  travel.  **  London,  Paris, 
and  Vienna  —  I  seen  them  all,  and  what 
is  there  in  one  of  'em  that  little  old  New 
York  can't  beat  in  a  showdown  ?  I  '11  dance 
a  clog  for  joy  when  I  hit  the  Broadway 
pave  again.  There  's  just  as  good  stores 
along  that  fine  little  thoroughfare  as  there 
is  on  Regent  Street  in  London,  Rue  de  la 
Paix  in  Paris,  and  what-you-may-call-it  in 
Vienna.  And  if  you  get  stung  in  Amer- 
ica, you  get  stung  by  a  self-respecting,  in- 
dependent Christian,  not  by  a  grovelling 
worm  that  don't  throw  no  more  chest 
than  a  Chink.  Gee,  I  wanted  to  trample 
on  some  of  them  fellows  sometimes.  In 
England  I  felt  ashamed  of  my  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood,  to  see  how  full-grown  men 

.[  '^8  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

could  act.  The  hotel  porter  holds  the 
door  open  for  me  when  I  go  out,  and  he 
says,  *  Thank  you,  sir.'  I  tell  a  cabby  to 
drive    me    to    the    Carlton,   and   he   says, 

*  Thank  vou,  sir.'  The  waiter  passes  me 
the   bread,  and  when   I   take  it,  he  says, 

*  Thank  you,  sir/  *  Look  here,'  I  says  to 
one  of  these  fellows,  ^you've  got  a  bad 
habit  of  thanking  a  person  in  advance. 
Wait  till  vou  eet  it.  Or  are  vou  trvins:  to 
be  funnv  r '  \\'ell,  I  always  thought  the 
Germans  were  an  upstanding  people.  But 
the  onlv  word  I  heard  all  over  Germany 
was  '  Bitte.'  When  I  'd  get  into  the  hotel 
elevator  the  guy  in  uniform  —  a  tam- 
ilv  man  with  sideburns  and  moustache  — 
would  sav,  '  Bitte,'  and  lift  his  cap  to  me. 
Lift  it,  mind  you,  clean  off  his  head,  not 
just  tip  it.  And  before  he  'd  let  me  out  of 
the  cage,  he  'd  always  have  to  say  '  Bitte  ' 
and  lift  his  cap  again.  It  was  an  awful 
waste  of  time  and  manners.  I  knew  there 
wasn't  anvthing  sincere  about  it  —  just  a 
plav  for  graft.    I  like  a  pirate  that  comes 

[  1^9  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

out  into  the  open  and  puts  on  a  front  — 
the  way  we  do  at  home  ;  give  me  the 
newsboy  that  calls  me  *  Charley  '  and  asks 
me  for  a  match.  And  say  ;  you  talk  about 
comforts  !  Out  to  my  house  I  've  got  a 
big  room  with  a  great  big  porcelain  tub 
and  nickel  fittings  and  a  tiled  floor  and  a 
needle  shower,  and  when  I  get  back  there 
I  'm  going  to  shut  myself  in  and  turn 
on  all  the  faucets  and  just  splash  for  about 
two  days.  And  I'm  going  to  have  griddle 
cakes  and  waffles  for  breakfast.  And  I  'm 
going  to  ride  up  and  down  all  day  in  a  sky- 
scraper elevator  —  one  that  goes  with  a 
jump  and  makes  the  blood  sort  of  blush  up 
all  through  you  when  it  starts.  I  'm  going 
to  have  excitement  and  comfort  every 
moment.  I  'm  going  to  carry  my  own 
bag  and  not  worry  myself  sick  for  fear  I 
have  n't  enough  foolish  money  in  my  pock- 
ets to  pass  round  to  every  one  that  wears 
a  uniform  or  a  dress  suit.  I  'm  going  to 
spend  my  Sundays  down  to  my  place  on 
the  beach  ;   the  house  ain't  a  French  cha- 

[  130  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

teau,  but  it 's  practical  and  to  my  mind  it 
has  considerable  ornament.  Sundays  there 
we  can  auto  in  the  morning  and  play  bridge 
in  the  afternoon,  and  have  cocktails  before 
lunch  and  dinner.  Ever  spend  a  Sunday  in 
England?  Oh  say  !   Spare  me  !  " 

**  Well,  that 's  right,"  agreed  another 
American.  **  But  you  must  acknowledge 
that  there  are  some  fine  old  buildings  and 
ruins,  such  as  we  can't  show." 

''  Ruins !  Me  and  my  wife  drove  out 
from  Warwick  one  day  —  say,  why  do 
they  call  it  *  Warrick  '  when  they  spell  it 
with  a  i£'  r  —  and  took  in  Kensilworth 
Castle,  is  it  ?  It  was  an  awful  hot  day,  and 
it  was  certainly  the  most  ruined  thing  I 
ever  saw.  After  about  eight  minutes  I  says 
to  my  wife,  *  Well,  what 's  the  use  ?  We  '11 
forget  it  all  any  way  in  a  week —  so  let  's 
go  and  have  some  beer.'  So  we  got  into 
our  carriage  and  had  the  coachman  drive 
us  across  the  road  to  a  little  inn;  they 
sold  postcards  with  views  of  the  ruins 
there,  and  I  bought  a  handful  and  told 

[  ^31  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

my  wife  to  send  'em  off  to  her  friends  so 
they'd  know  what  we  were  seeing;  and 
whil^  she  done  that,  I  unbuttoned  my  vest 
and  put  down  four  bottles  of  beer." 

Laughter  followed  and  then  an  interval 
of  silence,  upon  which  emerged  from 
another  corner  of  the  room  an  enthusias- 
tic, fluting  voice,  saying,  — 

**  My  dear  fellow,  '  Pelleas  and  Meli- 
sande,'  with  Debussy's  music,  is  the  most 
ravishingly  beautiful,  the  most  enchanting 
thing  I  ever  saw  or  heard."  — 

The  smoking-room  of  a  steamer  is  a 
place  of  contrasts  and  of  various  activities. 
The  dominating  element  is  likely  to  be 
a  noisy  sporting  fraternity.  The  bridge- 
players  and  the  poker-players  establish  early 
a  fellowship  which  is  cemented  by  the  op- 
portunities to  gamble  on  the  daily  run  of 
the  ship.  Others  of  more  sober  tendencies 
find  relaxation  in  solitaire,  in  checkers  or 
backgammon  ;  there  is  no  game  so  dull 
that  it  will  not  draw  critical  spectators. 
An  informality  prevails  which   makes   it 

[  132  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

quite  proper  to  look  over  the  shoulder  of 
a  player  and  derive  an  opinion  as  to  his 
mental  processes,  or  to  benefit  him  by  a 
friendly  suggestion  when  he  is  puzzled  in 
his  solitaire.  With  the  same  freedom  an 
exuberant  victor  will  issue  a  challenge  to 
the  crowd  ;  an  unconquerable  checker- 
player,  who  by  his  astonishing  skill  and 
fertility  had  attracted  a  group  of  admirers, 
was  encouraging  a  fresh  opponent :  *'  Well, 
well ;  it  looks  to  me  as  if  here  was  some 
one  who  knew  something  about  the  game 
—  but  let's  try  this.  Hello!  that's  a 
crafty  move,  isn't  iti  I  guess  he  thinks  he 
has  me  in  a  hole — but  I  wonder  what 
will  happen  now. — W^hat !  going  to  let 
me  take  three  of  your  men  for  one  of 
mine ;  do  you  think  that 's  good  policy  ? 
But  you're  right — seems  to  be  no  other 
way  out  of  it  for  you,  is  there.?"  In  two 
or  three  more  moves  he  had  annihilated  — 
with  compassionate  comment  —  his  an- 
tagonist ;  and  the  little  audience  stood  by 
sniggering. 

[  133  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

"  But  I  'd  like  to  see  some  one  lick  you," 
observed  a  spectator.  **  You  are  so  darned 
cocky  about  your  game."  The  champion 
laughed.  **  If  you  feel  that  way,  I  've  got 
to  do  something  to  be  popular.  Steward ! 
Ask  the  gentlemen  what  they'll  have." 

It  is  true  that  the  good  humor  and 
geniality  of  the  smoking-room  are  not 
universal.  Pretty  nearly  always  there  are 
individuals  or  groups  of  individuals  who 
take  a  furious  dislike  to  one  another  at  the 
start ;  and  out  of  these  instinctive  enmi- 
ties ill-natured  gossip  is  sometimes  born. 
Particularly  is  this  true  of  the  youthful ; 
their  standards  of  conduct  and  of  manners 
are  very  unyielding,  very  high  ;  the  faculty 
in  which  they  excel  is  that  of  condemna- 
tion ;  and  in  the  leisure  which  they  have 
for  criticism  they  endeavor  to  substantiate 
their  immediate  prejudices  and  antipathies. 
Nothing  is  more  amusing  or  irritating, 
according  to  one's  philosophy,  than  their 
positive  conclusions  with  regard  to  the 
character   of  those   whom    they   do    not 

[  134  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

know ;  nothing  is  more  agreeable  than  the 
enthusiasm  with  which  on  a  little  know- 
ledge they  recant  and  retract. 

One  aspect  of  the  smoking-room  is  to 
be  touched  upon  as  lightly,  as  regretfully 
as  is  compatible  with  truth,  yet  not  with 
entire  deprecation,  —  that  aspect  which  it 
wears  at  times  when  men  are  grouped  to- 
gether in  a  corner,  heads  down,  listening 
intently,  while  one  speaks  in  a  subdued 
voice.  The  smiling  silence,  then  the  loud 
guffaw  —  no  doubt  it  is  true  that  only 
man  is  vile.  Yet  I  believe  that  in  a  mature 
audience  no  serious  harm  is  ever  done  by 
the  story  that  arouses  honest  laughter. 
The  potency  of  such  laughter  is  for  good, 
no  matter  what  its  origin.  If  the  ^'smok- 
ing-room story,"  as  a  certain  type  of 
narrative  has  been  labelled,  does  not  pro- 
voke honest  laughter,  it  has  done  harm  — 
to  the  narrator  if  to  no  one  else.  And 
when,  in  the  expressive  vernacular,  a  story 
of  this  sort  receives  a  "frost,"  the  lesson 
administered  is  stern  ;   the  humiliation  is 

[  135  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

enough  to  make  others  wary  of  risking  a 
similar  rebuff.    A  somewhat  forward  per- 
son  never,   I  thought,   during   the  whole 
voyage  quite  regained  his  normal  assertive- 
ness,  which  he  lost  on  the  second  day  out 
—  Sunday.    He  was  sitting  that  morning 
in  the  smoking-room  ;  some  one  asked  him 
if  he  was  going  down  to  the  church  service.   , 
**  Oh  yes,"  he  answered  comfortably  and 
loudly,  so  that  all  might  hear,  and  he  con- 
tinued, '*  I  go  to  church  every  Sunday  ;   I 
don't  mind  it  at  all.    I  go  with  my  wife  ;  I 
like  to  sing  the  hymns  and  see  the  ladies  in 
their  Sunday  toggery ;  and  then  afterwards 
on  the   way  home   I   leave  my  wife  and 
stop  in  at  the  club  ;   quite  a  lot  of  the  boys 
have  the  habit  of  doing  that ;  and  we  sit 
round  and  swap  stories  for  an  hour  before 
lunch.    Pick  up  some  mighty  good  ones 
now  and  then."   And  forthwith  he  related 
to  the  company  a  specimen.    It  was  re- 
ceived with  gravity;   the  narrator  flushed; 
it  was  all  very  painful  and  salutary. 

The  smoking-room  is  indeed  a  school 

[  136  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

of  manners.    Its  devotees  are  not  fastidious, 
but  neither  are  they  of  blunted  sensibiH- 
ties.    The  vulgar  learn  from  the  gentle, 
and  the  gentle  learn  from  the  vulgar.    The 
art  of  smoking  tends  to  cultivate  a  spirit 
of   generosity;    there    is    a    brotherhood 
of   feeling    which    provides    tacitly    that 
he    whose    tobacco    pouch    is    full    shall 
share  wath   him  whose  pouch  is  empty; 
and  this  generosity  in   dealing  with   ma- 
terial possessions  accompanies  a  generos- 
ity  in  dealing  with  ideas.     No   place   is 
more  democratic  ;  nowhere  do  men  more 
earnestly  seek   to   meet   each   other  upon 
common  ground.    The  smoking-room  in- 
spires one  with  contentment  in  masculine 
resources.    The  more  one  habituates  one's 
self  to  its  atmosphere,  the  more  pleasant 
and  satisfying  does  it  become.     The  spell 
of  feminine   society  grows   less   and   less 
potent  to  the  smoking-room  philosopher. 
His  comfort  is  provided  for,  a  little  play 
goes  on  before  his  eyes,  indeterminate  and 
fragmentary  but  amusing,  the  characters 

[  137  ] 


THE    SMOKING-ROOM 

of  those  who  are  in  reminiscent  mood  un- 
consciously unfold,  oddities,  eccentricities, 
and  absurdities  are  revealed,  enthusiasms 
that  animate  the  heart  of  age  and  griev- 
ances that  vex  the  heart  of  youth  entertain 
him  with  their  humor;  and  if  in  his  pre- 
occupation with  these  trivialities, — the  sum 
of  which  may  mean  an  appreciable  wis- 
dom,—  he  neglects  more  and  more  those 
finer  moods  that  may  never  be  awakened 
in  the  smoking-room  or  in  the  compan- 
ionship of  those  who  frequent  it,  —  well, 
he  is  generally  a  rubicund  old  bachelor 
who  had  his  ideal  of  charm  long  ago  and 
pursued  it  till  it  vanished. 


1^' 


V 

CYNICISM 


CYNICISM 

One  of  the  seeming  waywardnesses  of  our 
human  nature  is  the  respect  for  a  cynic  that 
lurks  in  nearly  every  heart.  The  respect  is 
not  for  his  character,  certainly  not  for  his 
disposition;  but  it  goes  out  to  him  as  a 
man  of  intellect,  and  is  often  dispropor- 
tionate to  his  ability.  To  hear  that  a  man 
is  cynical  is  to  accept  him  as  of  superior 
intelligence.  There  is  a  universal  deference 
to  what  is  universally  deemed  an  unlovely 
and  undesirable  attitude  of  mind.  The  en- 
trance of  the  cynic  into  the  drawing-room 
produces  an  air  of  expectant  interest ;  his 
rancorous  comments  are  received  as  admir- 
able wit.  So,  at  least,  according  to  the 
contemporary  novels  of  society;  so,  even, 
—  though  in  a  somewhat  less  obvious  and 
artificial  manner, — according  to  one's  own 
observation.  We  all  find  more  interesting 
the  person  who  discusses  his  friend's  fail- 

[  HI  ] 


CYNICISM 

ings  than  him  who  dwells  upon  his  friend's 
virtues.  We  do  not  like  the  cynic  better, 
but  we  regard  him  as  the  more  penetrat- 
ing and  the  better  informed. 

Hence  we  find  him  excellent  company. 
For  instance:  Brown  takes  pains  to  make 
a  pleasant  impression  on  those  whom  he 
meets,  and,  in  the  ordinary  relations  of  life, 
gets  on  with  his  acquaintances  and  friends 
very  comfortably.  When,  therefore,  the 
cynical  observer  shrugs  his  shoulders  and 
intimates  something  to  Brown's  discredit, 
the  idea  has  for  those  who  know  Brown 
the  charm  of  novelty,  and  adorns  him  with 
a  new  interest.  Having  never  before  held 
him  in  discredit,  they  feel  that  his  detractor 
has  got  below  the  surface.  The  conviction 
is  strengthened  by  the  cynic's  air  of  men- 
tal reservation,  his  unwillingness  to  utter 
definitely  w^hat  he  knows,  his  manner  that 
implies,  **Oh  yes,  all  very  well,  but  I  could 
tell  things  if  I  would." 

This,  however,  is  not  the  only  cause 
that  contributes  to  the  general  deference. 

[  142  ] 


CYNICISM 

If  one  man  declares  a  person  to  be  charm- 
ing, fascinating,  or  delightful,  and  another 
pronounces  him  disgusting,  repulsive,  or 
intolerable,  who  makes  the  more  profound 
impression?  The  language  of  enthusiasm 
is  emasculate  compared  with  that  of  hatred 
or  contempt.  A  sufficient  reason  for  the 
undemonstrative  nature  of  the  English- 
speaking  race  lies  in  the  effeminate  quality 
of  the  adjectives  that  denote  admirable 
traits.  Some  of  them  can  hardly  be  uttered 
without  a  consciousness  of  a  loss  of  virility. 
One  has  only  to  contrast  with  them  the 
hearty  gusto  of  our  vocabulary  of  dislike 
and  depreciation  to  perceive  the  tremen- 
dous advantage  that  the  cynic  enjoys. 

His  very  name  supports  his  pretensions 
to  a  superior  intelligence.  *'  Cynic,"  for 
all  that  it  meant  originally  ''doglike,"  is 
an  aristocratic  word.  One  is  not  prone  to 
think  of  coal  heavers,  sailors,  miners,  as 
cynics  ;  it  has  probably  occurred  to  but 
few  that  their  grocers  and  butchers  are 
cynics.    The  word  is  erudite  and  Greek  ; 

[   H3  ] 


CYNICISM 

the  presumption  is  that  the  man  designated 
by  a  term  of  such  distinguished  Hneage  is 
of  education  and  intelUgence.  We  have 
a  habit  of  deriving  ideas  in  this  illogical 
way.  The  cynics  in  the  humbler  walks 
of  life  are  not  regarded  as  cynics,  but  as 
men  soured  and  disappointed.  And  when 
we  hear  of  one  that  he  is  soured  and  dis- 
appointed, we  do  not  instinctively  pay 
tribute  to  his  intelligence. 

Is  there,  then,  no  wisdom  in  cynicism, 
no  virtue  in  disbelief?  Does  the  undoubted 
suggestion  of  intelligence  which  the  word 
implies  rest  entirely  upon  such  trivial 
and  empty  grounds  ?  Unquestionably  the 
inner  respect  which  persists,  notwithstand- 
ing the  superficial  condemnation,  proceeds 
from  a  dim  recognition  of  certain  useful 
services  that  cynicism  does  perform.  An 
attempt  to  discover  these  and  set  them 
forth  fairly  need  not  disturb  even  the  most 
believing. 

A  reasonable  cynicism  affords  recreation 
to  the  mind.    A  man  may  always,  with 

[  H4  ] 


CYNICISM 

advantage  to  his  mental  health,  indulge 
in  a  cynicism  as  a  hobby  ;  he  may,  for 
instance,  be  cynical  of  women,  or  news- 
papers, or  party  politics,  or  the  publishers 
of  novels,  and  be  the  better  for  it.  But  he 
is  in  a  serious  state  if  his  cynicism  includes 
women  and  newspapers  and  party  politics 
and\\\Q  publishers  of  novels.  Then,  indeed, 
is  his  outlook  bleak  and  barren,  and  in 
all  probability  he  lives  and  works  only  to 
malign  ends. 

Nearly  all  sane,  normal  people,  how- 
ever, enjoy  one  cynicism  by  way  of  diver- 
sion. It  is,  indeed,  essential  to  character  to 
have  some  object  at  which  to  scoff,  swear, 
or  sneer.  Cynicism  is  never  a  native  qual- 
ity of  the  mind  ;  it  always  has  its  birth  in 
some  unhappy  experience.  The  young 
man  finds  that  the  girl  who  has  gathered 
up  for  him  all  the  harmony  and  melody 
of  earth  rings  hollow  at  the  test;  and  he 
drops  his  lyrical  language  and  becomes 
cynical  of  women.  The  citizen  of  Boston 
has  naturally  grown  cynical  of  newspapers. 

[  H5  ] 


CYNICISM 

The  candidate  for  public  office  who  has 
been  definitely  retired  to  private  life  by 
being  '*  knifed  ''  at  the  polls  distrusts  party 
politics.  A  man  reads  the  advertisement  of 
a  novel,  then  reads  the  novel,  and  thence- 
forth is  cynical  of  the  publishers  of  novels. 
Yet  these  misfortunes  have  their  salutary 
aspect.  The  disappointed  lover,  general- 
izing bitterly  upon  the  sex,  is  not  always 
implacable  ;  a  cooler  judgment  tempers 
and  restores  his  passion,  gives  it  another 
object,  and  so  guides  him  to  a  safer,  if 
less  gusty  and  emotional  love.  The  citizen 
of  Boston,  the  betrayed  candidate,  the 
misled  and  disappointed  reader,  all  have 
for  their  condition,  even  though  they  know 
it  not,  a  valuable  compensation  ;  for  the 
very  experience  that  has  brought  them  to 
this  pass  of  reasonable  cynicism  has  stirred 
their  indignation  ;  yes,  in  spite  of  their 
seeming  inertness,  indignation  is  now 
smouldering.  And  this  is  a  great  force  ; 
slow  though  it  may  be  to  start  the  wheels 
of  machinery,  it  is  still  an  important  fuel 

[  146] 


CYNICISxM 

in  keeping  alive  the  fires  under  the  boilers 
of  civilization.  The  faculty  of  it  becomes 
dulled  by  disuse,  and  is  the  more  alert  and 
righteous  for  a  little  rasping.  Hew  impres- 
sive and  commanding  a  quality  in  a  man  is 
that  of  a  great  potential  indignation  !  It 
is  essential  to  the  chieftain.  He  may  never 
show  more  than  the  flash  of  an  eye,  yet 
that  will  serve.  And  such  power  of  in- 
dignation never  came  to  one  who  had  not 
penetrated  some  large  bland  sham,  and 
learned  thereby  to  hate  and  disbelieve  all 
its  seductive  kindred. 

In  supplying  one  with  a  theme  for  in- 
dignation, the  turn  toward  cynicism  fur- 
nishes also  an  additional  amusement  and 
charm.  If  a  man  is  in  the  habit,  for  ex- 
ample, of  expecting  nothing  but  tales  of 
murder,  suicide,  and  scandal  on  the  first 
page  of  his  newspaper,  he  becomes  actually 
pleased  at  the  rich  daily  reward  of  his  ex- 
pectations. '*  Scurrilous  sheet !  "  he  cries, 
striking  it  with  open  palm.  To  behold, 
morning  after  morning,  its  recurring  of- 

[  H7  ] 


CYNICISM 

fensiveness  and  hypocrisy,  to  feel  that  there 
are  less  discerning  persons  who  approve  of 
the  very  features  that  make  it  despicable, 
and  to  exclaim  to  himself,  **  So  this  is  what 
the  public  likes!  "  brings  him  each  time 
a  curious  satisfaction.  Perhaps  it  is  merely 
the  satisfaction  of  a  small  gratified  vanity, 
but  it  enables  him  to  begin  his  day  in  a 
comfortable  frame  of  mind  ;  he  is  pre- 
pared to  snarl  only  at  newspapers.  It  is 
desirable  that  every  man  should  have  a 
small  vanity  gratified  daily ;  it  keeps  him 
in  good  temper  with  himself  and  the  world. 
And  to  observe  small  vanities  and  foibles 
in  others  performs  this  service,  since  a  man 
always  absolves  himself  from  sharing  the 
weaknesses  that  he  sees. 

Yet  cynicism  has  a  more  valuable  end 
than  merely  to  amuse.  It  is  a  means  to- 
ward sturdiness  and  independence  in  a 
man;  it  quickens  his  activities,  and  pre- 
vents a  too  ready  acceptance  of  existing 
conditions.  It  is  almost  necessary  to  im- 
portant    achievement.      The     reverential 

[  148  ] 


CYNICISM 

frame  of  mind  is  inefficient  when  con- 
fronted with  the  world's  work  ;  too  much 
in  the  problems  of  life  demands  not  to  be 
reverenced,  but  to  be  cursed.  There  can 
be  no  useful  and  permanent  building  up 
without  a  clearing  of  the  site  ;  old  foun- 
dations and  debris  have  to  be  swept  away. 
The  man  of  reverential  mind,  who  has 
no  touch  of  cynicism,  is  unfit  for  this 
work.  He  is  unfit,  for  instance,  to  serve 
as  district  attorney  in  one  of  our  large 
cities,  —  as  useful  a  function  as  an  edu- 
cated man  may  perform,  yet  one  in  the 
performance  of  which  the  man  of  entirely 
reverential  spirit  would  be  harmfully  em- 
ployed. The  reverential  spirit,  contem- 
plative of  the  established  order,  crowds 
out  capacity  for  initiative  ;  the  cynical 
spirit,  scouting  the  established  order,  stim- 
ulates initiative.  Of  this  spirit  have  been 
the  great  reformers,  men  for  whom  Swift, 
in  defining  his  own  life,  has  supplied  a 
motto  :  ''  The  chief  end  of  all  my  labor 
is  to  vex  the  world  rather  than  to  divert 

[  H9  ] 


CYNICISM 

it."  It  was  characteristic  of  Cromwell 
that  in  dissolving  the  Long  Parliament  he 
should  display  a  wanton  cynicism.  "  My 
Lord  General,  lifting  the  sacred  mace 
itself,  said,  '  What  shall  we  do  with  this 
bauble  ?  Take  it  away  !  '  "  The  scorn 
with  which  he  disposed  of  the  revered 
symbol  of  majesty  was  in  itself  symbolic ; 
as  the  Cavalier  had  been  cynical  of  the 
Puritan's  piety,  so  was  the  Puritan  cynical 
of  the  pomp  and  trappings  of  the  Cavalier. 
The  great  rulers,  like  the  great  reform- 
ers, have  had  the  cynical  sense,  and  have  in 
the  same  way  derived  from  it,  not  paraly- 
sis, but  an  effective  recklessness.  Louis 
XIV,  most  brilliant  of  monarchs,  observed 
in  making  an  appointment  to  office,  *' J'ai 
fait  dix  mecontents  et  un  ingrat."  And 
he  continued  to  appoint  whom  he  pleased. 
Frederick  the  Great  was  the  pupil  of  Vol- 
taire ;  and  when  a  Board  of  Religion  came 
to  him  with  a  complaint  that  certain 
Roman  Catholic  schools  were  used  for  sec- 
tarian purposes,  he  bade  them  remember 

[  '50] 


CYNICISM 

that  ''in  this  country  every  man  must  get 
to  heaven  his  own  way."  The  ruthless 
cynicism  of  Peter  the  Great  -was  supple- 
mented by  the  splendid  constructive  hope- 
fulness from  which  issued  his  saying,  '*  I 
built  St.  Petersburg  as  a  window  to  let  in 
the  light  of  Europe." 

Yet  we  need  not  go  to  history  for  illus- 
tration ;  even  in  one's  own  experience  it 
is  not  difficult  to  note  the  efficiency  which 
a  vein  of  cynicism,  properly  combined 
with  other  qualities,  gives  a  man.  Those 
who  are  regarded  as  successful,  or  as  being 
on  the  road  to  success,  are  cheerful,  hope- 
ful persons,  with  just  this  slightly  cynical 
outlook.  Those  who  have  failed,  or  are 
failing,  are  just  as  surely  the  utterly  cyni- 
cal, the  decayed,  querulous,  and  embittered, 
or  the  supremely  reverential,  who  have 
too  much  respect  for  things  as  they  are  to 
undertake  any  alteration.  These  are  the 
indolent;  they  may  work  hard  all  their 
lives,  yet  are  they  none  the  less  indolent 
mentally,  and  unalert. 

[  ^51  ] 


CYNICISM 

There  is,  indeed,  what  may  be  called 
the  cynical  sense,  not  to  be  confused  with 
the  sense  of  humor,  though  akin  to  it.  It 
is  this  which  enables  a  man  to  keep  out  of 
the  stock  market,  and  even  more,  to  look 
without  jealousy  on  the  achievements  of 
those  who  are  in  the  stock  market.  It  is 
the  antiseptic  sense.  So  far  from  promot- 
ing envy,  malice,  and  uncharitableness,  it  is 
allied  with  sympathy.  For  sympathy  means 
understanding,  and  there  can  be  no  true 
understanding  if  one  does  not  detect  the 
weaknesses  as  well  as  the  virtues ;  without 
this  cynical  sense,  one  has  not  humanity. 
It  gives  a  man  a  lively  and  discriminat- 
ing interest  in  life;  it  guards  him  against 
the  paralyzing  vice  of  hero-worship,  — 
which  is  a  virtue  only  in  the  young  and 
immature,  —  and  against  the  more  sinful 
fault  of  arrogance  toward  the  dejected  and 
beaten.  For  just  as  it  enables  him  to  see 
how  trivial  are  even  the  greatest  achieve- 
ments of  human  ingenuity  and  labor,  with 
what  little  loss  the  work  of  even  the  best 

[  152] 


CYNICISM 

and  wisest  might  have  been  omitted  in  the 
progress  of  the  world,  so,  also,  it  prevents 
him  from  being  unduly  scornful  of  those 
who  have  accomplished — for  all  that  ap- 
pears on  the  surface — nothing.  Seeing  a 
man  who  has  failed,  the  cynically  minded 
wonders  what  accidents  of  birth  and  cir- 
cumstance imposed  his  fruitlessness  upon 
him  ;  seeing  a  man  who  has  succeeded,  the 
cynic  wonders  if  he  had  done  so  without 
the  innumerable  reinforcements  of  chance. 
If  this  view  tends  toward  fatalism,  so  does 
it  also  toward  democracy. 

Yet  one's  cynicism  must  always  be  tem- 
pered in  its  sentiment  and  limited  in  its 
scope.  A  man  may  profitably  be  cynical 
of  women,  yet  his  faith  and  loyalty  to  at 
least  one  woman  —  his  mother,  or  his 
sister,  or  the  woman  he  loves  —  must  be 
unswerving  and  unquestioning.  A  man 
may  not  be  cynical  of  children  or  with 
children.  He  cannot  be  cynical  of  friends 
and  keep  them.  He  must  not  grow  cyni- 
cal of  himself,  for  then  nothing  remains. 

[  153  ] 


CYNICISM 

And  the  danger  of  cynicism  is  that  once 
admitted  into  a  man  it  may  grow,  appro- 
priating one  after  another  of  his  channels 
and  outlets,  narrowing  his  hopes  and  en- 
thusiasms, until  finally  it  rots  the  man 
himself. 

Reasonably  limited  and  kept  within 
bounds,  it  is  a  source  of  strength  to  a  man 
rather  than  of  weakness ;  it  gives  him  an 
independent  and  self-respecting  point  of 
view  ;  it  berates  him  if  he  tends  toward  a 
weak  sentimentality ;  it  is  the  companion 
of  a  cheerful  levity.  Take  their  cynical 
outlook  away  from  Heine  and  Goethe  and 
Victor  Hugo,  from  Swift  and  Johnson  and 
Franklin,  —  and  how  flavorless  would  be 
what  remained  !  How  insipid  would  be 
a  literature  in  which  wit  and  humor  had 
to  disport  themselves  entirely  among  the 
pleasants  facts  of  life  ! 


VI 

THE   QUIET   MAN 


THE   QUIET   MAN 

At  college  it  was  always  easy  to  create 
a  prepossession  in  favor  of  a  man  by  re- 
commending him  as  a  '*  nice,  quiet  sort  of 
fellow."  In  the  case  of  the  athlete  who 
had  demonstrated  his  vitality  and  manly 
qualities,  the  reason  for  this  prepossession 
was  clear  ;  the  declaration  of  his  friends 
was  an  assurance  that  his  head  had  not 
been  turned  by  his  achievements,  and  that 
he  was  modest  and  unassertive.  But  it 
always  seemed  to  me  singular  that  so  neg- 
ative a  statement  should  so  generally  have 
guaranteed  the  worth  of  one  of  whom 
little  else  was  known.  Even  in  the  larger 
world  outside  of  college,  the  same  guar- 
antee holds  good  ;  let  a  stranger  in  a  city 
have  but  one  friend  who  makes  it  known 
that  he  is  a  "  nice,  quiet  sort  of  fellow," 
and  he  will  not  lack  for  a  welcome. 
Yet   many  of  the  primary  and  obvious 

[  ^57  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

reasons  for  quietness  in  a  man  are  not 
prepossessing.  It  may  be  that  he  is  a  weak- 
ling ;  bullied  because  of  his  lack  of  strength 
in  the  Spartan  age  of  boyhood,  he  has  had 
fixed  upon  him  the  habit  of  timidity  and 
self-effacement.  Or  he  may  be  stupid,  yet 
with  just  enough  intelligence  to  perceive 
his  dulness  and  so  to  be  dumb.  Or  he 
may  by  nature  be  one  of  those  passionless, 
unenthusiastic,  indifferent  creatures  who 
find  sufficient  occupation  in  buttoning  on 
their  clothes  in  the  morning  and  unbut- 
toning them  at  night,  eating  their  three 
meals  and  going  through  the  daily  routine 
work  or  routine  idleness  to  which  neces- 
sity or  circumstance  has  accustomed  them. 
The  classification  is  incomplete  ;  there  are 
quiet  men  who  are  not  weaklings,  who 
are  not  stupid,  who  are  enthusiastic,  men 
of  firm  will  and  steadfast  purpose.  But  if 
we  pass  over  these  for  the  present,  it  will 
appear  that  the  self-control  practised  by 
quiet  persons  had  oftentimes  better  give 
place   to  self-abandon,   and   that   many  a 

[  158  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

man  is  respected  for  his  restraint  when  he 
should  be  pitied  for  his  diffidence.  There 
is,  for  instance,  the  case  of  one  whose  quiet 
ways  have  resulted  from  a  sense  of  physi- 
cal inferiority  in  boyhood. 

No  matter  what  victories  may  be  at- 
tained in  the  development  of  character, 
the  point  of  view  and  the  manner  that 
were  fixed  in  the  early  formative  years 
are  never  quite  discarded.  The  boy  who 
has  less  strength  than  his  fellows,  less 
athletic  skill,  and  yet  admires  and  longs 
for  these  possessions,  invites  only  too  often 
demonstrations  upon  himself  of  the  vigor 
and  prowess  that  he  covets.  A  boy  likes 
above  all  things  to  show  his  power  over 
another  boy  ;  and  the  most  instant  method 
is  by  putting  him  down  and  sitting  on 
him,  or  by  seizing  his  wrist  and  twisting 
it  till  he  howls,  or  by  gripping  the  back 
of  his  neck  and  forcing  him  to  march 
whither  the  tyrant  wills.  Once  the  un- 
lucky weakling  is  discovered  and  his  sus- 
ceptibility to  teasing  exposed,  he  becomes 

[  159  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN       ' 

the  plaything  of  his  stronger  mates.  The 
amusement  is  the  greater  if  he  resents  it 
with  spirit,  the  keener  if  he  has  a  sensi- 
tiveness which  is  hurt  by  the  abuse,  the 
more  frequently  invited  if  he  has  the  fatal 
admiration  for  deeds  of  strength,  and 
haunts,  in  spite  of  its  terrors,  the  society 
of  those  who  can  perform  them.  His 
spirit  is  not  crushed,  but  it  learns  discre- 
tion ;  his  sensitiveness  grows  into  a  shy 
and  morbid  pride  ;  he  likes  to  look  on 
at  better  men,  and  to  know  them,  but  he 
finds  it  wise  to  be  inconspicuous,  inasmuch 
as  to  draw  attention  to  himself  usually 
means  to  suffer  from  a  display  of  the  very 
abilities  which  he  admires. 

And  out  of  this  what  results  ?  He  ac- 
quires the  habit  of  looking  on  and  being 
socially  inconspicuous.  He  may  have  en- 
ergies that  in  the  end  win  for  him  emi- 
nence, but  he  will  probably  be  to  the  end 
a  shy  and  quiet  man.  It  is  not  necessary 
that  a  boy  should  be  a  w^eakling  to  arrive 
at  this  development  ;   some  trifling  pecu- 

[   '60] 


VERSITY 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

liarity,  a  curious  quality  of  voice,  or  a  ner- 
vous and  easily  mimicked  laugh,  or  an 
alien  accent  may  suffice  to  create  in  him 
an  undue  tendency  to  hold  his  tongue.  I 
know  one  man  who  attributes  his  **  cursed 
quietness "  to  an  ailment  of  the  throat 
that  he  had  when  a  boy,  and  that  made 
his  speech  husky  and  often  liable  to  break 
down.  Another  thinks  he  is  quiet  because 
he  never  could  sing  ;  nearly  always  in  any 
gathering  in  which  he  found  himself, 
there  was  singing,  and  he,  utterlv  with- 
out the  musical  sense,  sat  and  contributed 
nothing.  This  inability  in  expression  ex- 
tended even  to  his  speech  ;  he  could  not 
manage  his  voice  to  tell  a  story  effectively, 
and  though  no  one  has  a  keener  apprecia- 
tion of  the  humorous  or  dramatic,  no  one 
is  less  able  than  he  to  realize  it  in  his 
talk. 

Then  there  are  the  humble-minded  peo- 
ple who  fancy  themselves  too  dull  or  too 
uninformed  to  be  interesting,  and  who  cut 
themselves  off  from   sharing  freely  with 

[  i6i  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

others  their  thoughts  and  opinions.  Often 
they  do  themselves  scant  justice  in  their 
modesty,  and  win  all  the  more  on  that 
account  the  regard  of  the  few  who  come 
near  enough  to  know  them.  But  they  are 
always  understood  of  but  few,  and  they 
are  bottled-up  people,  a  nervous,  self-con- 
scious, timorous  folk,  of  pleasant  disposi- 
tion and  much  sentiment,  who  seldom  cut 
any  large  figure  in  the  world. 

The  others,  who  really  are  dull  and 
without  being  oppressed  by  the  knowledge 
preserve  a  befitting  retirement,  constitute 
perhaps  a  majority  of  the  quiet  men.  To 
be  dull  is  certainly  not  to  be  disliked;  and 
yet  I  question  if  any  one  of  this  numerous, 
agreeable,  and  necessary  company  quite 
fills  out  the  original  mental  picture  sum- 
moned by  the  recommendation,  —  "a  nice, 
quiet  sort  of  fellow."  For  the  phrase  sug- 
gests a  man  who  has  reserves  of  thought 
or  knowledge  or  moral  force.  Indeed,  we 
often  follow  up  the  designation,  as  thus: 
**  A  nice,  quiet  sort  of  fellow,  with  a  lot 

[  162  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

to  him."  On  closer  acquaintance,  we  are 
likely  to  find  that  his  quietness  proceeds 
from  lack  of  strong  convictions  rather  than 
from  moral  force,  or  from  mere  empty- 
headedness  rather  than  from  thoughts  too 
deep  to  share.  We  come  to  think  him  a 
man  with  a  receptive  habit  but  little  as- 
similative power.  He  listens  but  does  not 
learn.  It  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  mental  and 
moral  dyspepsia  from  which  he  suffers. 

Let  us  suppose,  however,  that  it  is 
neither  lack  of  ideas  nor  ill  digestion  of 
ideas  which  renders  him  a  quiet  man,  but 
that  he  is  indeed  a  person  ''with  a  lot  to 
him."  Then,  usually,  he  is  the  man  of  one 
idea.  It  is  rare  that  he  has  versatility.  He 
is  the  small  inventor  or  the  mechanician, 
whose  mind  on  being  diverted  from  the 
study  of  wheels  and  cogs  can  in  no  other 
sense  be  diverted;  it  is  cold  alike  to  Shake- 
speare and  to  baseball.  He  is  the  young 
poet  of  good  impulses  and  a  little  talent, 
toying  with  his  lyric  and  indifferent  to  the 
science  of  the  stars,  of  the  green  and  grow- 

[  ^63  ] 


,THE    QUIET    MAN 

ing  things  about  him,  and  to  the  business 
and  endeavors  of  his  active  fellow  men. 
He  is  the  lawyer  who  makes  a  career  out 
of  ingenuity  in  splitting  hairs;  he  is  the 
business  man  who  carries  his  ledgers  home 
with  him  at  night;  he  is  any  man  who, 
by  his  devotion  to  an  abstract  principle  or 
problem,  or  to  a  material  fact,  neglects  his 
relations  with  nature  and  with  men.  If 
the  principle  is  important  and  appeals  to 
a  missionary  and  reforming  conscience,  and 
if  the  man  has  power,  he  is  not  admitted 
to  fellowship  among  the  quiet,  but  accord- 
ing to  one's  point  of  view  is  hailed  as  a 
hero  or  denounced  as  a  crank,  a  nuisance, 
or  a  fool. 

Of  the  many  small  people  involved  in 
their  struggle  with  one  idea,  and  aban- 
doned to  their  solitary  interest,  Emerson 
has  supplied  a  phrase  that  may  be  appro- 
priated for  definition.  They  are  Mere 
Thinkers,  as  contrasted  with  Man  Think- 
ing. In  them  the  human  element  is  defi- 
cient. They  may  have  an  absorbed  interest 

[  164] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

in  their  one  pursuit,  perhaps  even  a  kind 
of  dry  and  laudable  enthusiasm;  in  their 
narrow  range  their  souls  may  have  con- 
flicts with  the  devil  and  issue  worthily;  but 
they  are  not  the  men  of  rich  and  generous 
nature,  whose  ideas  take  form  in  action, 
and  who  in  action  strike  out  fresh  ideas. 
Man  Thinking  is  man  alert,  versatile,  liv- 
ing,—  which  is  to  say,  finding  constantly 
new  interest  in  the  things  and  beings  about 
him,  and  developing  himself  more  and 
more  by  the  contact.  From  the  ranks  of 
Man  Thinking  emerge  most  of  the  strong 
and  virile,  the  men  of  burly  laughter,  ob- 
serving and  remembering  eye,  and  care- 
less, wide-ranging  talk;  the  unhoarded, 
chance-flung  anecdote,  the  unconsciously 
graphic  phrase,  the  crisp  expression  of  a 
truth  shrewdly  seen  drop  from  the  lips  of 
Man  Thinking,  not  from  those  of  Mere 
Thinker.  One  Mere  Thinker  in  a  million 
may  some  time  evolve  by  mathematical 
and  intellectual  processes  a  machine  of 
more  than  mathematical,  even  of  human 

[  165  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

value ;  yet  even  then  it  is  Man  Thinking 
who  will  perfect  it,  and  manufacture  it, 
and  advertise  it,  and  sell  it,  and  secure  to 
the  world  at  large — and  to  Man  Think- 
ing in  particular — its  benefits.  So  Man 
Thinking  is  never  quiet ;  he  is  bustling, 
urging,  cajoling,  threatening,  flinging 
his  arms  about,  or  battering  with  heavy, 
hostile  fists  ;  and  in  his  leisure  moments 
pouring  out  prodigally,  for  whoever  may 
pass,  his  amazed  or  delighted  or  pained 
impressions, — just  like  an  earnest,  excited 
child. 

And  meanwhile  the  quiet  man,  — 
Mere  Thinker.  Hear  Emerson  :  "  Meek 
young  men  grow  up  in  libraries,  believing 
it  their  duty  to  accept  the  views  which 
Cicero,  which  Locke,  which  Bacon  have 
given,  forgetful  that  Cicero,  Locke,  and 
Bacon  were  only  young  men  in  libraries 
when  they  wrote  these  books.  Hence, 
instead  of  Man  Thinking,  we  have  the 
bookworm.  Hence,  the  book-learned  class, 
who   value  books  as  such.   .   .   .   Hence, 

[  i66] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

the  restorers  of  readings,  the  emendators, 
the  bibliomaniacs  of  all  degrees/' 

The  narrowness  and  inertia  of  the  quiet 
man  are  frequently  moral  as  well  as  men- 
tal. He  is  firm  on  the  point  of  certain 
things  which  he  will  not  do,  but  his  virtue 
is  too  likely  to  be  of  this  negative  quality  ; 
and  while  his  noisy  and  active  brother 
is  blundering  about,  learning  what  life  is, 
perhaps  heaping  up  sins  and  offences, 
yet  also  building  himself  in  his  heed- 
less, casual  way  monuments  of  good.  Mere 
Thinker,  with  eyes  upon  the  ground, 
treads  the  barren  path  of  the  dull  preci- 
sian. Since  he  is  quiet,  he  receives  credit 
for  virtues  if  he  does  not  exhibit  boldly 
their  antithetic  vices.  Loyalty  and  stead- 
fastness and  a  good  domestic  nature  are 
the  excellent  qualities  most  often  attrib- 
uted to  him.  Yet  as  to  the  first  of  these, 
can  any  one  doubt  the  truth  of  Stevenson's 
words :  '*  A  man  may  have  sat  in  a  room 
for  hours  and  not  opened  his  teeth,  and 
yet   come   out   of  that   room   a    disloyal 

[  167  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

friend  or  a  vile  calumniator"  ?  The  quiet 
friend  may  be  as  faithful  as  the  vociferous, 
but  there  should  be  no  presumption  in 
his  favor,  for  his  very  habit  of  life  is  in- 
sidious, and  tends  to  breed  the  germs  of 
doubt  if  not  disloyalty.  The  looker-on  is 
usually  the  man  dissatisfied  with  idleness 
and  critical  of  the  activity  of  others.  Be- 
cause it  might  draw  upon  him  compari- 
son to  his  disadvantage,  he  does  not  utter 
freely  his  carping  criticism  of  the  active  ; 
but  he  bears  in  mind  how  much  better  he 
himself  would  do  this  or  that  if  it  were 
not  for  some  forbidding  circumstance. 
And  this  habit  of  comparing  himself  with 
others,  which  is  one  of  the  common  re- 
creations of  the  quiet  man,  sometimes,  no 
doubt,  begets  the  envy  which  makes  it 
easy  to  betray. 

Even  his  unquestioned  domesticity  may 
not  be  so  comprehensive  a  virtue.  To  sup- 
port some  one  besides  himself  in  decency 
and  honor  is  not  all  that  a  man  should 
strive  to  do,  though  it  is  much.    He  should 

[  i68  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

also  feel  the  obligation  to  bring  gayety 
into  the  lives  of  those  whom  he  loves. 
It  is  possible  for  some  men  by  sheer  earn- 
ing power  to  provide  their  families  with 
opportunities  for  travel  and  amusement 
and  adventure.  But  the  earning  power  of 
the  majority  is  limited  in  these  matters  ; 
and  all  the  more  is  it  necessary  then  tor 
the  man  to  bring  variety  and  a  cheerful 
activity  and  liveliness  into  his  house.  The 
fact  that  the  routine  of  the  day  has  been 
dull  does  not  excuse  him  for  being  glum 
and  silent  at  his  evening  meal.  And  too 
much  of  the  quietness  in  the  world  is  but 
the  habit  of  a  listless  and  brooding  selfish- 
ness. 

It  would  be  wanton  to  make  these  ex- 
posures and  not  offer  a  remedy.  Here  is 
a  suggestion  for  the  quiet  man  :  "  Learn 
to  make  a  noise." 

It  is  not  enough  that  he  should  celebrate 
the  Fourth  of  July  each  year  in  the  cus- 
tomary manner,  —  though  he  may  find 
even  that  barbarous  observance  beneficial. 

[  ^69  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

Taking  an  active  part  in  the  romps  and 
play  of  children  is  a  resource  that,  if  open 
to  him,  he  should  embrace.  Probably  he 
has  so  schooled  himself  to  inexpressiveness 
that  he  cannot  at  once  emerge  out  of  the 
secondary  place  into  which  he  is  relegated 
at  social  gatherings  ;  but  three  or  four 
times  a  year  he  should,  at  whatever  cost 
of  courage,  insist  upon  being  heard.  The 
advice  to  make  a  noise  need  not  be  taken 
literally,  —  though  such  interpretation 
would  lead  few  quiet  men  into  serious 
error.  It  may  serve  the  purpose  if  the  man 
develops  a  strong  outdoor  enthusiasm,  or 
a  keen  spirit  of  rivalry  in  games,  for  either 
of  these  will  introduce  into  his  existence 
that  element  of  life  that  he  most  needs. 
If  he  can  acquire  some  undignified  accom- 
plishment, —  if  he  can  learn  to  sing  a 
'*  coon  song,"  or  to  play  upon  the  mouth 
organ,  or  to  dance  a  clog,  or  to  recite 
**  Casey  at  the  Bat,"  —  he  will  have  made 
an  advance  in  the  art  of  living  such  as 
none  but  a  constitutionally  shy  and  quiet 

[  170] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

person  can  understand.    Perhaps,  with  the 
best  will  in  the  world,  he  can  attain  to 
none  of  these  things  ;   he  may  then  find  a 
means  of  grace  in  the  occasional  revels 
and  merry-makings  that  are  not  denied 
even   the   most   quiet.     Failing    all   else, 
and  being  quite  out  of  conceit  with  him- 
self, let  him  go  tramping  in  search  of 
adventure,  —  in    the    city    by-streets    at 
night,  or  through  the  countryside.    But 
there,  again,  does  the  quiet  man  become 
aware  of  his  misfortune ;  adventure  evades 
him  ;   and   while    his   assertive,   unappre- 
ciative  brother,   on   going  downtown  in 
the  morning,  may   have  a  romantic  en- 
counter with  a  runaway  automobile  occu- 
pied by  a  beautiful  lady,  or  with  a  tiger 
strayed  from  a  circus,  he  may  roam  the 
world  and  meet  with  no  runaway  automo- 
bile, no   tiger,  and,  alas  and   alack  !    no 
beautiful  lady.  Even  so,  let  him  persevere  ; 
preparing  himself  for  adventure,  he  may 
almost  attain  the  habit  of  mind  of  the  ad- 
venturous. 

[  17'  ] 


THE    QUIET    xMAN 

But  never,  I  fear,  will  he  fully  attain  it. 
There  will  always  be  the  horrid,  harassing 
doubt  —  never  shared  by  the  truly  adven- 
turous—  as  to  whether  he  would,  indeed, 
bear  himself  heroically.  To  illustrate  the 
point,  I  must  make  a  confession;  I  am  a 
quiet  man.  Although  I  have  often  pre- 
pared myself  in  mind,  I  have  not  yet  set 
out  upon  my  quest  of  adventure.  But  no 
longer  ago  than  yesterday,  one  of  my  di- 
rect, unquestioning  friends  plunged  into 
it ;  and  ever  since  I  have  been  miserably 
torn  with  inquiry  as  to  whether  in  his 
place  I  should  have  been  so  prompt.  Rid- 
ing on  his  bicycle  along  a  village  street, 
he  was  aware  that  a  wagon  overtook  and 
passed  him  at  unusual  speed,  but  he  thought 
nothing  of  this.  He  had  dismounted,  and 
was  entering  a  gateway  when  he  heard  a 
great  hubbub  behind  him  ;  and  looking 
round  he  saw  men  running,  with  cries  of 
"Stop  him  !  Stop  him  !  "  and  in  front  of 
them  a  man  speeding  along  on  a  bicycle. 
My  friend  stepped  out  into  the  street  and 

[     1/2    ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

opposed  a  threatening  front ;  still  the  flee- 
ing rider  came  on.  And  then,  just  as  he 
was  about  to  whiz  by,  my  friend  hurled 
his  bicycle  into  the  rider's  path  ;  the  two 
machines  went  down  with  a  crash,  and 
the  hero  flung  himself  valiantly  upon  the 
groaning  wretch,  who  lay  crumpled  amid 
the  wreckage.  "  I  've  got  him  !  "  cried  the 
hero  to  the  breathless,  gathering  throng. 
"Got  him!"  they  answered,  with  here 
and  there  a  sneering  accent  of  profanity. 
"  We  yelled  at  you  to  stop  the  fellow  in 
the  wagon."  "  Yes,  the  fellow  I  was  chas- 
ing," added  the  unfortunate  captive.  And 
indeed,  it  appeared  that  the  driver  was 
the  miscreant,  having  knocked  down  a 
woman  and  made  off;  and  the  bicyclist 
had  merely  been  one  of  a  humane  and 
inquisitive  mob. 

Now,  my  agitating  question  has  been, 
Should  I,  too,  thus  boldly,  peremptorily, 
and  efficiently  have  hurled  my  bicycle? 
For  the  life  of  me  I  cannot  tell.  So  many 
reasons  why  I  might  have  done  so  occur 

[  1/3] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

to  me,  and  then  again  so  many  considera- 
tions which  might  have  stayed  my  hand. 
A  fleeing  criminal  —  one's  pubhc  duty  — 
and  yet  on  such  uncertain  grounds  —  to 
wreck  him  so  utterly,  to  damage  him  per- 
haps so  irreparably  !  All  I  am  sure  of  is 
that  I  should  have  opposed  a  threatening 
front. 

And  this,  I  imagine,  is  the  chief  afflic- 
tion, the  shame  of  many  a  quiet  man, — 
the  dread  of  finding  in  some  important 
moment  that  the  reflective  habit  has  pro- 
duced paralysis.  Even  if  he  breaks  through 
the  net  of  qualifying  considerations  and 
acts  efficiently,  he  has  the  humiliated  feel- 
ing that  he  has  made  a  great  mental  to-do 
over  a  matter  that  some  one  else  would 
have  gone  about  without  debate.  More- 
over, he  shrinks  from  using  his  faculties 
in  unconventional  ways  ;  again  I  must 
serve  as  corpus  vile  for  purposes  of  illustra- 
tion. A  man  who  had  been  my  guest 
overnight  decided  the  next  morning, 
which  happened  to  be  Sunday,   that  he 

[  174  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

desired  a  cab.  From  the  back  window  of 
my  lodgings,  which  are  on  the  fourth 
floor  of  the  house,  he  descried  a  livery 
stable,  and  opening  the  window  he 
shouted  lustily  in  the  Sabbath  stillness  the 
name  of  the  proprietor.  Now,  although 
we  have  in  our  rear  a  livery  stable,  our 
neighborhood  is  prim  and  even  fastidious  ; 
the  houses  in  our  block  are  occupied  by 
families  with  highly  conventional  notions 
of  propriety.  In  some  dismay  I  pulled 
my  guest's  coat-tails,  whispering  that  I 
would  send  out  for  a  cab ;  withdrawing  his 
head  for  a  moment,  he  replied,  '*  This 
is  quicker,"  and  then  again  thrusting  it 
forth,  continued  to  bawl.  At  last  a  stable 
boy  answered  him ;  he  gave  his  order, 
specifying  the  number  of  the  house  with 
painful  distinctness  ;  after  which  he  turned 
to  me  and  complimented  me  on  the  con- 
venience of  my  situation  and  the  need- 
lessness  of  a  jingling  telephone.  In  my 
scheme  of  life,  a  cab  is  the  last  of  all  ex- 
travagances;  yet  even  if  it  were  not,  or 

[  -75] 


THE.  QUIET    MAN 

if  I  had  found  myself  in  the  direst  need 
of  one,  I  am  sure  it  would  never  have 
occurred  to  me  to  employ  this  simple, 
primitive  method  of  securing  it.  Qiiiet- 
ness  tends  to  unfit  one  for  the  use  of  rudi- 
mentary instruments. 

It  is  time,  after  these  frank  confessions, 
to  rehearse  some  merits  of  the  quiet  man, 
and  particularly  to  dwell  upon  the  ad- 
mirable qualities  of  some  quiet  men.  It  Is 
hardly  necessary  to  summon  up  here  the 
kindly  and  perhaps  not  more  than  three- 
quarters  fallacious  banality  about  the  con- 
stant need  of  good  listeners.  We  must 
persuade  ourselves  of  some  less  negative 
excuse  for  our  existence.  I  dismiss  from 
consideration  also  the  splendid  quiet  hero 
of  romance,  the  Imperturbable  ;  when- 
ever I  have  discovered  an  air  of  the  im- 
perturbable in  a  man,  I  have  also  discovered 
an  offensive  self-complacency,  and  I  am 
unable  to  do  justice  to  this  particular  flower 
of  the  species. 

Perhaps  the  most  worthy  office  that  the 

[  176] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

quiet  man  performs  is  that  of  the  com- 
forter, or  at  least  the  sympathetic  confidant 
of  grief.  He  who  is  stricken  in  spirit,  and 
must  utter  his  sorrow,  turns  less  readily  to 
the  exuberant  than  to  the  silent  friend, 
whose  speech  is  apter  with  eyes  than  with 
lips.  It  matters  not  very  much  if  such  a 
man  has  the  weakness  that  must  so  often 
be  imputed ;  let  him  be  but  a  true  friend 
and  a  quiet  one,  and  the  sore  in  heart  will 
take  some  comfort  in  him.  If  he  has  not 
the  weaknesses,  but  is  stanch  and  strong,  a 
walk  with  him  in  the  open  air,  whether 
in  the  biting  winds  of  March  or  over  the 
sunlit  fields  of  May,  or  a  talk  with  him 
before  the  winter  fire,  may  put  vigor,  as 
well  as  the  first  sense  of  peace,  into  the 
soul. 

As  such  a  friend  is  a  resource  in  time 
of  sadness,  so  on  happier  occasions  he 
need  never  be  a  kill-joy.  No  merriment 
was  ever  stifled  because  one  of  those  bid- 
den to  share  it  could  contribute  nothing 
but  appreciation.     That  quality  the  quiet 

[  177  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

man  must  have.  It  is  the  noisy  or  the 
active  one  who,  even  while  giving  life 
to  happy  gatherings,  is  most  dangerous. 
Some  blurted  truth,  some  reckless  jest, 
some  too  searching  inquiry  or  too  down- 
right, blunt  debate  may  strike  dead  the  gay 
laughter  and  transform  cheerful,  open- 
hearted  contentment  into  a  suffering  de- 
sire to  escape.  Quiet  men  may  rarely  be 
charged  with  breaches  of  tact,  careless  and 
inconsiderate  speech,  the  little  slights  that 
gall  the  sensitive,  the  little  failures  to  be 
diplomatic  where  diplomacy  were  honest 
as  well  as  kind.  Quiet  men  are  not  the 
busybodies ;  quiet  men  were  not,  I  am 
convinced,  the  comforters  of  Job. 

And  the  best  of  them  are  deserving  of 
nearly  the  best  that  we  can  say.  Not  quite 
the  best;  one  can  hardly  believe  that  the 
great  Elizabethans,  for  instance,  were  quiet 
men.  But  out  of  our  own  acquaintance 
let  us  pick  the  few  who,  without  an  im- 
pressive show  of  energy  and  activity,  per- 
form in  the  most  truly  workmanlike  way 

[  ^78  ] 


THE    QUIET    MAN 

work  that  they  seem  willing  to  let  pass 
unnoticed.  They  do  not  spend  a  great 
portion  of  their  lives  in  efforts  to  attract 
attention  to  their  achievements,  to  their 
skill ;  they  do  not  despise  popular  appre- 
ciation, but  they  find  the  courting  of  it  un- 
important and  unworthy;  therefore  they 
move  upon  the  performance  of  their  tasks, 
unfretful  if  they  are  neglected,  keeping  to 
themselves  the  trials  and  perplexities  that 
they  encounter,  patiently  overcoming  and 
accomplishing.  They  may  not  win  so 
many  or  so  varied  experiences  and  gifts 
from  life  as  the  reckless  and  ranging  adven- 
turer; theirs  is  not  often  the  genius  that 
builds  the  greatest  and  most  enduring  mon- 
uments ;  yet  nearly  all  that  has  the  charm 
of  fine  and  perfect  workmanship,  nearly  all 
that  is  subtly  and  beautifully  conceived  and 
exquisitely  wrought,  in  manufactures,  in 
machinery,  in  painting  and  music  and 
literature,  bears  testimony  to  the  serene 
vision,  the  unremitting  toil  of  the  quiet 
man. 


VII 
«IN  SWIMMING 


^^N  SWIiMMING" 

Late   in   the  afternoon,  when   the  boys 
grew  tired  of  playing  baseball,  some  one 
would  say,  "  How  about  going  in  now?'' 
or,  more  often,  give  a  whistle  and  hold 
up  two  fingers  of  one  hand,  the  universal 
sign  of  natatory   purpose  and   invitation. 
Then  my  heart  would  sink.    At  that  age 
I  never  got  tired  of  playing  baseball —  and 
I  could  not  swim.    Once  they  were  headed 
for  the  river,  it  was  useless  to  protest ;   and 
I  followed  them,  as  disconsolate  and  en- 
vious a  nine-year-old  as  there  was  in  the 

land. 

We  crossed  the  railroad  track  at  the 
foot  of  the  meadow,  and  ran  down  the 
path  under  the  arching  willows  and  oaks 
of  the  bank  to  the  river  beach.  There, 
while  the  others  were  undressing,  I  would 
stand  and  scale  stones  out  over  the  water 
with  an  assumed  indifference,  deaf  to  their 

[  183  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

urgings  that  I  should  come  in  with  them 
and  try  to  learn.  They  treated  me  with 
a  compassionate  kindliness,  —  not  unlike 
that  with  which  the  heath-dwellers  in 
"The  Return  of  the  Native"  assisted  the 
unfortunate  Christian  Cantle  to  acquiesce 
in  his  incompetence,  —  and  when  they 
found  that  I  could  not  be  persuaded,  they 
would  ask  me,  one  after  another,  to  keep  an 
eve  on  their  clothes.  I  do  not  know  from 
what  source  they  feared  molestation,  and 
I  never  was  aware  that  any  of  them  carried 
valuable  property  which  might  tempt  a 
passer-by  to  crime.  Their  injunction  may 
have  been  thoughtfully  designed  to  restore 
to  me  some  measure  of  self-respect  and 
make  me  feel  that,  even  though  I  could 
not  swim,  there  was  still  a  place  for  me 
in  the  world.  At  any  rate,  I  took  the 
responsibiHty  with  some  seriousness,  and 
preserved  a  sharp  watch  over  all  the  ar- 
ticles intrusted  to  my  care,  occasionally 
nailing  down  a  fluttering  shirt  with  a 
stone,   or   pursuing  a   hat   that   had  been 

[  '84  ] 


'^N    SWIMMING" 

started  on  a  bumping  expedition  by  the 
breeze. 

When  the  half-past-five  train  burst  thun- 
dering out  of  the  cut  a  hundred  yards  up 
the  river,  all  the  boys  made  for  deep  water, 
or,  if  they  were  too  near  shore  for  that, 
modestly  immersed  themselves,  —  all  ex- 
cept one  young  Indian,  whose  practice  it 
was  to  come  scrambling  ashore  and  there 
dance  defiantly,  waving  his  arms  and  yell- 
ing while  the  train  passed.  This  perform- 
ance was  always  rather  shocking  to  me; 
even  while  I  admired  its  daring.  One  day 
the  Indian's  mother  was  on  the  train,  and 
recognized  him  from  the  window,  and 
for  a  week  thereafter  he  did  not  go  in 
swimming,  but  sat  with  me,  like  Fido, 
by  the  clothes. 

As  often  as  I  had  the  opportunity, 
and  could  be  sure  there  were  no  other 
boys  to  spy  upon  my  infantile  efforts,  I 
used  to  sneak  down  to  the  river  and  give 
myself  swimming  lessons.  Whether  the 
fault  was  mainly  with  the  teacher  or  with 

[  185] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

the  pupil,  I  do  not  know;  but  I  had  begun 
to  despair  of  ever  learning,  when  one  day 
I  stretched  myself  out  recklessly  upon  the 
water  and  began  to  swim.  I  was  so  amazed 
to  find  myself  afloat  that  after  a  few  strokes 
I  felt  I  had  better  stop  and  think  about 
it,  so  I  dropped  my  feet  and  groped  for 
bottom ;  to  my  infinite  horror  it  was  not 
there.  The  current  of  the  river,  probably 
more  than  my  own  efforts,  had  carried  me 
beyond  my  depth. 

I  beat  the  water  desperately  with  my 
hands,  trying  to  regain  the  swimming  po- 
sition, and  went  under.  My  fright,  after 
the  first  terror  at  not  finding  bottom,  was 
quite  inadequate.  When  I  came  up  stran- 
gling and  saw  the  shore  slipping  by,  the 
rock  on  which  I  had  laid  my  clothes 
more  distant  than  before,  I  thrust  crazily 
with  arms  and  legs  and  determined  that 
nobody,  and  least  of  all  my  mother,  should 
ever  know  of  my  narrow  escape.  I  ac- 
cepted escape  as  a  foregone  conclusion, 
even  while  realizing  the  peril.    Somehow 

[  i86] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

I  got  ashore,  choking  and  gasping,  and 
made  my  way  back  to  my  clothes.  There, 
while  I  sat  on  a  rock  and  recovered  my- 
self, I  reflected  with  some  pride  that  I  had 
achieved  a  new  importance.  I  had  almost 
been  drowned,  and  I  had  learned  to  swim. 
A  disposition  to  test  the  reality  of  my  ac- 
quirement, and  ascertain  if  I  might  rely 
on  its  permanence,  impelled  me  to  enter 
the  water  again.  In  the  exhilaration  of 
confirming  my  discovery,  it  soon  became 
a  pleasure  to  take  a  risk.  I  enjoyed  the 
sensation  when,  a  few  days  later,  I  inter- 
rupted the  ball  game  by  giving  a  whistle 
and  holding  up  two  fingers  oT  one  hand. 

The  largest  percentage  of  drowning  ac- 
cidents to  boys  occur,  I  am  told,  in  rivers. 
From  my  own  experience  I  am  con- 
vinced that  if  a  lake  or  the  ocean  is  acces- 
sible, a  river  should  not  be  chosen  as  the 
scene  of  one's  elementary  swimming  les- 
sons ;  but  where  a  river  is  the  only  water 
at  hand,  a  boy  had  better  risk  being  swept 
away  by  the  current.    No  doubt  in  most 

[  187  ] 


'^N    SWIMMING" 

cases  he  will  take  that  risk,  even  though 
his  parents  concede  only  as  much  liberty 
to  swim  as  the  mother  in  the  nonsense 
rhyme  was  willing  to  allow  her  daughter. 
One  of  the  pleasures  that  I  find  in  sum- 
mer travel  is  to  watch  out  of  the  train 
window,  as  we  skirt  the  banks  of  streams, 
for  the  boys  bathing,  standing  waist-deep 
in  the  water,  or,  with  only  wet  heads 
above  the  surface,  stemming  the  current 
in  momentary  rivalry.  In  these  glimpses 
the  pleasure  is  perhaps  not  wholly  that 
of  personal  reminiscence  and  sympathy  ;  I 
think  the  veriest  hoodlum  of  the  village, 
seen  stripped  and  in  a  woodland  setting, 
may  be  the  Pan  in  one's  fleeting  vision  of 
Arcady.  Some  persons  I  have  heard  cry 
out  against  the  publicity  of  such  bathing  ; 
to  me  the  sight  seems  as  innocent  as  the 
pastime.  Cows  knee-deep  in  streams  are 
the  painter's  favorite  subject  for  a  pastoral ; 
if  I  were  a  painter,  I  think  I  should 
choose  almost  as  often  boys  bathing  in  a 
brook. 

[  i88  ] 


*aN    SWIMMING" 

To  be  picturesque  is  not,  however,  the 
swimmer's  aim,  and  except  for  its  pictur- 
esque effect  river  bathing  is  not  very  sat- 
isfactory. The  bigger  the  river,  the  more 
dirty  and  unpleasant  and  unsheltered  is  it 
likely  to  be;  the  smaller  the  stream,  the 
more  certain  in  the  summer  months  to  be- 
come a  mere  dribble  in  which  one  crawls 
about  hunting  for  a  spot  where  it  may  be 
deep  enough  to  swim.  Or  if  it  is  not 
disqualilied  in  either  of  these  respects,  its 
current  will  cause  annoyance ;  one  grows 
weary  of  always  having  to  quarter  against 
it,  of  never  being  able  to  lie  peacefully  at 
rest  without  being  whisked  off  to  a  point 
which  is  inconveniently  conspicuous  or 
from  which  return  is  undesirably  laborious. 

The  utmost  luxury  for  the  swimmer 
would  be  always  to  have  freedom  of  choice 
as  to  where  he  would  swim  —  whether 
in  pond  or  lake  or  ocean.  Then  he  would 
be  able  each  day  to  adapt  his  swim  to  his 
mood.  For  swimming  may  be  variously 
operative  on  a  man  ;   desiring  one  remedy, 

[  189  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING'^ 

he  may  find  himself  refused  it  by  the 
perversity  of  the  element  —  served  with 
the  wrong  prescription.  He  would  like  a 
swim  as  relaxing  as  a  Turkish  bath,  and 
he  is  in  for  a  boxing  match.  For  instance, 
it  is  a  hot,  oppressive  day;  you  have  been 
doing  concentrated  mental  labor  for  some 
hours,  and  you  wish  to  turn,  not  to  vigor- 
ous exercise,  but  to  a  soothing  employ- 
ment, a  languid,  indolent  use  of  the  mus- 
cles which  will  leave  you  in  a  mood  for 
sleep.  But  your  available  swimming  tank 
is  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  in  a  latitude  where 
the  temperature  of  the  water  never  rises 
above  fifty-eight  degrees  ;  and  the  day  is 
windy  and  overcast ;  you  put  on  your  bath- 
ing suit  and  stand  on  the  beach  looking 
reluctantly  at  the  breaking  waves.  The 
wind  chills  you  a  little,  and  although 
nothing  is  more  distasteful  than  to  nerve 
yourself  for  an  effort,  you  doit;  you  take 
a  breath  and  run  into  the  icy  water  —  and 
oh,  the  torture  of  that  entrance  !  The  cold 
waves  dash  at  your  ankles  and  then  at  your 

[  190  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

knees,  and  then,  while  you  are  reeling, 
they  grip  your  waist  and  wrestle  with  you 
for  a  fall — which  you  grant  them  with 
a  shuddering  relief.  You  go  under,  lips 
compressed,  eyes  shut,  and  shoot  up  again 
to  the  air,  crying  to  yourself,  ''  Thank 
Heaven,  that 's  over !  "  Then  you  kick  out 
and  strike  out  and  writhe  round  in  the 
waves  in  a  furious  effort  to  get  w^arm  ; 
you  can't  do  it  swimming  on  your  breast, 
and  you  turn  on  one  side  and  draw  up 
your  knees  and  lunge  out  and  gasp  ;  and 
then  a  wave  cuifs  you  in  the  head  and 
gives  you  a  stinging  earful,  and  you  leap 
up  in  angry,  sputtering  remonstrance.  You 
do  not  grow  appreciably  warmer,  violent 
as  is  your  endeavor,  rough  as  is  your  buf- 
feting; you  are  bounded  up  and  down,  and 
pitched  into  the  smother  of  breaking 
waves,  and  slapped  and  doused  and  inso- 
lently abused,  until  you  work  yourself  into 
a  passion  and  plow  through  the  turbu- 
lent sea  with  venomous  puffs  that  might 
be  translated,  "  You  will,  will  you !  You 

[  191  ] 


''IN    SWIMMING" 

will,  will  you !  Take  that  now — take  that 
—  take  that!"  Thus  you  are  provoked  to 
an  insane  contention  and  excitement,  when 
a  few  moments  before  your  whole  incli- 
nation had  been  toward  a  meditative  float- 
ing upon  a  warm  and  tranquil  pond.  But 
for  all  your  furious  bravado,  for  all  your 
mighty  exercise,  your  teeth  are  already 
chattering  with  cold,  your  vigor  is  stiff- 
ening in  your  veins ;  and  you  are  glad  to 
turn  and  be  helped  ashore  by  the  waves 
that  you  had  presumed  to  defy. 

Then,  when  you  rub  yourself  down  and 
dress,  you  begin  to  glow  w^ith  an  ardent 
energy,  with  legs  a  little  tremulous,  per- 
haps. You  had  desired  mere  relaxation, 
and  you  have  been  violently  stimulated. 
But  the  spirit  to  be  up  and  doing  soon 
fades  into  an  impotent  restlessness,  and 
from  that  you  pass  into  the  comatose  in- 
dolence which  was  your  primary  desire. 
There  is,  perhaps,  some  subtle  detriment 
to  the  temper  when  one  has  to  experience 
such   probationary   stress   and   tumult    in 

[  192  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

order  to  attain  the  repose  into  which  the 
dweller  by  a  pond  may  gently  slip.  Tho- 
reau  would  have  been  a  more  irascible 
person  if  he  had  had  to  do  his  swimming 
off  the  Maine  coast  instead  of  in  Lake 
Walden. 

Yet  the  placid  dwellers  beside  quiet 
lakes  may  not  claim  entire  advantage  of 
opportunity  over  the  turbulent  sea  bathers. 
They  know  the  soft  delight  of  swimming; 
they  miss  its  stormy  joy.  It  is  agreeable 
to  be  one  of  them  when  the  only  demand 
made  by  your  body  is  for  rest ;  but  when 
both  your  spirits  and  your  vitality  are  high, 
the  unruffled  smoothness  of  the  pond,  even 
though  it  is  overhung  by  the  springiest  of 
springboards,  does  not  quite  meet  your 
longings.  You  can  run  and  leap  and  dive 
and  rush  in  sprints  through  the  water,  but 
you  are  aw^are  of  a  disappointing  tameness; 
you  are  playing  in  a  dead,  unresponsive 
medium ;  you  are  not  sporting  with  a  re- 
sourceful, lithe,  and  sinewy  adversary;  you 
cannot  conjure  up  the  excitement  and  ar- 

[  193  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING '^ 

dor  of  battle  which  grip  your  imagination 
with  the  first  plunge  into  the  swelling 
ocean.  The  greater  buoyancy  of  the  salt 
water  exalts  the  swimmer's  spirit  and 
quickens  his  vitality ;  the  gentler  drag  of 
the  inland  lake  wooes  him  to  a  luxurious 
listlessness.  As  you  buffet  the  ocean  waves, 
you  can  exultingly  feel  and  exclaim,  **  Aha, 
old  man,  you  're  trying  to  down  me  —  but 
I'm  still  on  top;  put  that  in  your  pipe 
and  smoke  it."  And  so,  proud  wrestler 
that  you  are,  you  swarm  up  one  billow 
and  down  the  next,  grappling  to  your 
heart  all  the  while  a  personified  adversary, 
and  laughing  with  triumph  because  in 
spite  of  his  struggles  he  cannot  get  you 
down  and  put  his  knee  on  your  chest.  It 
is  something  to  emerge  panting  and  drip- 
ping from  these  contests,  and  strut  upon 
the  sand,  and  mentally  credit  yourself  with 
one  more  victory. 

Quiet  inland  bathing  offers  you  no  such 
extravagant  opportunities  to  be  a  poseur. 
If  the  water  is  warm,  you  loll  in  it  at  your 

[  194  ] 


^'IN    SWIMMING" 

ease  ;  your  mind  is  soon  stupefied  by  the 
sensuousness  in  which  you  are  enfolded ; 
the  interest  of  your  sleepy  eyes  does  not  ex- 
tend beyond  the  gentle  ripples  that  widen 
away  from  the  slow,  submerged  strokes 
of  your  arms.  After  a  while  you  roll  over 
on  your  back  and  drowsily  execute  at  in- 
tervals a  languid  ''shoo  fly"  leg  motion, 
while  you  look  drowsily  up  into  the  void. 
Now  and  then  you  will  raise  your  arms 
and  flap  them  down  through  the  water 
like  a  pair  of  sweeps;  it  is  only  a  tired  sort 
of  effort.  And  finally,  in  the  supreme 
abandonment  of  indolence,  you  lay  your 
head  back,  far  back,  until  the  water  creeps 
up  about  vour  eyelids ;  you  stretch  out 
legs  and  arms  motionless,  and  lie,  breath- 
ing tranquilly,  sensible  of  no  other  move- 
ment in  the  world  than  the  slight  flux  and 
slip  of  the  water  upon  your  heaving  chest. 
Then  may  you  realize,  perhaps,  something 
of  the  lark's  sensation  when,  with  wings 
outspread,  it  hangs  suspended  between 
earth  and  sky.     He  who   has  never  thus 

[  195  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING'' 

suspended  himself  idly  in  still  water,  with 
fathoms  below  him  and  infinity  above, 
has  missed  one  of  the  sensuous  delights  of 
existence.  Unfortunate  man,  who  goes  to 
his  grave  believing  that  there  is  nothing 
better  than  bed  for  weary  limbs  and  a 
jaded  brain! 

The  consequences,  of  course,  are  hun- 
ger and  torpidity.  The  bath  in  the  quiet 
pond  does  not  make  you  feel  "  freshened 
up"  —  unless  you  flout  its  allurements, 
dive  in,  scramble  out,  and  roughly  rub 
yourself  down.  I  cannot  be  sympathetic 
with  any  one  whose  moral  rigidity  thus 
denies  him  a  Sybaritic  indulgence.  In  the 
cold,  loud-sounding  sea  I  may  be  his  com- 
rade; but  let  him  not  insult  with  such 
hygienic  tentativeness  my  luxurious  inland 
pool.  He  must  give  himself  to  it  trust- 
ingly, with  no  reserve,  willing  to  be  wooed 
into  idle  dalliance,  to  eat  the  lotus  and 
smell  the  poppies  and  mandragora  of  life. 
If  he  dares  no  experience  that  may  slacken 
the  tension  of  his  fibres,  physical  or  moral, 

[  ^96  ] 


-IN    SWIMMING" 

let  him  avoid  the  seductive  inland  pool. 
For  not  onlv  does  a  surrender  to  its  em- 
brace leave  one  too  indolent  to  work;  it 
even  purifies  the  zealot  who  sets  too  high 
a  value  upon  work,  and  it  insinuates  be- 
fore him  an  ideal  of  play.  After  the  first 
somnolence  has  worn  off,  he  will  be  ac- 
tive for  further  exercise,  for  sports  and 
games;  he  will  show  a  keen  interest  in 
being  amused ;  but  for  toil  he  will  have 
aversion.  Fresh  water  swimming  is  for 
those  who  have  never  had,  or  who  have 
put  aside,  scruples  against  idleness  ;  for  the 
promotion  of  the '*  strenuous  life"  we  must 
have  the  water  cold,  and  we  must  have  it 
salt. 

It  depends  partly  upon  the  individual, 
and  again  partly  upon  the  place,  whether 
swimming  is  more  to  be  enjoyed  as  a  soli- 
tary recreation  or  as  a  social  diversion. 
There  are  some  unimaginative  persons, 
incapacitated  for  solitude  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, who  would  never  resort  to  a 
lonely  swim  except  in  the  last  despair  of 

[  ^97  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING'' 

ennui;  and  I  believe  there  are  a  few  mor- 
bid persons  who  shrink  from  displaying 
themselves  in  bathing  suits  and  abhor  the 
more  informal  freedom  that  sometimes 
prevails  among  swimmers.  But  disregard- 
ing such  abnormal  types,  we  may  broadly 
lay  down  the  principle  that  a  lonely  swim 
in  the  ocean  is  a  cheerless  undertaking, 
and  that  a  lonely  swim  in  a  small  inland 
lake  is  a  delight.  In  excluding  the  ocean 
as  a  fit  resource  for  the  solitary,  I  would 
not  deny  that  he  may  find  satisfaction  in 
an  early  morning  plunge ;  but  that  is  hardly 
**  going  in  swimming."  There  are,  to  be 
sure,  a  few  moments  in  the  life  of  a  man 
when  in  his  own  exultant  bigness  he  may 
stalk  grandly  and  alone  into  the  sea  and 
hail  it  as  his  intimate  playfellow,  and  breast 
it  with  a  single  valiancy  —  when  he  may 
imagine  himself  in  the  likeness  of  deep 
calling  unto  deep,  just  as,  if  he  happened 
at  that  juncture  to  be  mountain  climbing, 
he  would  leap  from  crag  to  crag  and  per- 
sonify the  live  thunder.    But  these  occa- 

[  198  ]. 


"IN    SWIMMINC 

sions  arise  rarely  in  the  lives  of  ordinary 
mortals  ;  and  they  are  to  be  sei-zed  at  the 
instant  ;  their  duration  is  seldom  above 
half  an  hour.  If  the  lawyer  could  strip  off 
his  clothes  and  plunge  into  the  lonely 
ocean  the  moment  after  he  had  completed 
the  masterly  argument  that  was  to  disrupt 
a  trust;  if  the  doctor  who  had  struggled 
day  and  night  sleeplessly  to  bring  back  the 
moribund  to  life,  and  had  come  at  last 
staggering  to  victory,  could  in  that  weary 
happiness  of  power  launch  himself  uncom- 
panioned  on  the  waves;  if  the  speculator 
who,  to  general  panic  and  his  own  large 
aggrandizement,  had  turned  the  market 
topsy-turvy  could  souse  himself,  chuck- 
ling like  a  boy  at  his  prank,  and  find  the 
ocean  comrade  for  his  laughter,  —  that 
would  indeed  be  the  sublimation  of  climax. 
But  as  our  Napoleonic  moments  are  few, 
so  also  are  our  Napoleonic  moods  transitory ; 
after  a  brief  half  hour  there  come  the 
questions:  "Is  it  so  complete?"  "What 
next?"  "  Has  destiny  nothing  more?"  At 

[  199  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

the  psychological  moment  the  ocean  was 
remote  or  unavailable  for  solitude ;  by  the 
time  we  can  get  down  to  it  and  the  beach 
is  all  cleared  for  our  majestic  entrance, 
we  begin  to  look  about  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  companions.  We  do  not  like  to 
feel  insignificant;  and  nothing  makes  a 
man  more  sensible  of  insignificance  than 
striking  all  alone  out  into  the  bound- 
less sea.  If  there  is  but  one  unknown 
head  bobbing  in  the  waves  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  distant,  it  will  give  him  heart  for  his 
mimic  wrestling;  but  if  there  is  no  one  to 
share  the  absurdity  of  the  play  with  him 
and  dare  with  him  the  oppressive  grim- 
ness  of  infinity,  he  soon  comes  ashore 
subdued. 

Indeed,  even  in  its  most  benign  moods, 
the  ocean  has  for  the  lonely  bather  a  du- 
bious geniality  ;  it  does  not  encourage  tri- 
fling. It  is  only  when  the  exuberant  and 
boisterous  crowds  are  gathered  on  the  sand 
and  frolic  in  the  waves  that  there  is  created 
an  atmosphere  of  light-hearted  forgetful- 

[    200    ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

ness  which  makes  the  swimmer's  sanguine 
imagination  quite  free  to  play. 

And  these  exuberant  crowds  —  how 
they  contribute  to  the  interest  and  gayety 
of  your  swim  !  As  you  go  lunging  through 
the  water,  rudely  shouldering  your  huge 
adversary,  you  view  the  other  swimmers 
and  the  promenaders  on  the  beach  with 
a  heartening  enjoyment.  The  man  just 
entering  the  water,  flinging  up  his  arms 
as  he  treads  warily,  the  woman  out  on  the 
raft  who  is  learning  to  dive  and  who  flops 
flat  under  the  surface  with  a  splash,  the 
swift  swimmer  who  glides  by  with  a  long 
overhead  reach  of  a  brown  arm  that  rises 
and  dips  and  rises  again,  rhythmical  as 
a  gull's  wing,  —  such  little  glimpses  give  a 
zest  to  the  elemental  experience  through 
which  you  are  passing.  You  find  it  pleasant 
to  loiter  for  a  time  in  the  midst  of  such 
buoyant  and  vivacious  eflfort ;  you  like  the 
shrill  voices  and  the  strident  laughter  ;  your 
eyes  sweep  the  beach  with  a  moment's  in- 
terest in  the  gay  parasols,  in  the  bunchy 

[   201    ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

bathing  suits  of  the  hesitating  women,  in 
the  gaunt,  dripping  forms  of  the  emerg- 
ing men.  Then  some  human  porpoise  rolls 
lazily  by  on  his  back,  with  white  toes  and 
a  comfortable  amplitude  projecting  above 
the  surface,  and  you  feel  that  you  have 
loitered  long  enough  ;  you  must  not  be 
outstripped  by  such  lumbering  freight.  So 
you  turn  and  go  about  your  business, — 
the  conquest  of  the  vast  wrestler  who  has 
been  nudging  you  all  the  while.  Far  out 
beyond  the  diving  raft,  and  beyond  the 
other  bathers,  you  meet  him  and  try  con- 
clusions-, you  test  upon  him  all  your  art 
and  skill ;  you  turn  on  your  side  and  shoot 
yourself  at  him  like  a  projectile ;  you  grap- 
ple with  him  hand  over  hand;  you  tread 
him  down  with  your  feet ;  you  duck  un- 
der and  trip  the  wave  that  he  sends  to  quell 
you;  and  then  you  swim  under  water  and 
come  up  suddenly  and  take  him  in  the  rear. 
There  is  never  a  moment  when  you  are 
not  getting  the  better  of  him  in  spite  of 
all  his  roughness ;   and  though  at  the  end 

[    202    ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

you  have  to  call  it  a  drawn  battle,  you 
know  that  morally  the  victory  is  yours. 
And  on  your  way  in  from  that  gallantly 
fought  field  to  rejoin  those  more  timorous 
bathers  whose  champion'  you  may  swell- 
ingly  imagine  yourself,  you  stop  at  the 
raft  and  take  a  final  dive,  just  by  way  of 
a  farewell  fillip  to  your  gnashing  adver- 
sary. 

Occasionally  on  a  hot  summer  afternoon 
I  resort  to  a  city  beach  which  is  inclosed 
for  men  alone.  It  is  the  most  democratic 
place  I  know,  and  one  of  the  most  hu- 
morous. Clergymen,  doctors,  lawyers, 
shopkeepers,  plumbers,  motormen,  team- 
sters, and,  I  dare  say,  criminals,  enter  the 
bath-house,  put  off  their  clothes,  and  pass 
out  upon  the  other  side,  equal  not  only 
before  the  Lord,  but  also  in  one  another's 
sight.  Each  man  wears  suspended  by  a 
cord  about  his  neck  a  small  brass  check 
bearing  the  number  of  his  dressing-room  ; 
—  and  he  wears  nothing  else. 

From  either  end  of  the  bath-house  a 

[  203  ] 


"IN    SWLMMING" 

high  board  fence  juts  far  out  into  the 
water,  and  shelters  the  bathers  from  ex- 
posure to  the  fastidious  world.  It  is  a 
scene  for  Teufelsdrockh — so  many ''  forked 
radishes  with  heads  fantastically  carved" 
performing  on  land  and  water  so  many 
exercises  — **  while  I,"  exclaims  the  Phi- 
losopher of  Clothes,  ''  —  good  Heaven  !  — 
have  thatched  myself  over  with  the  dead 
fleeces  of  sheep,  the  bark  of  vegetables,  the 
entrails  of  worms,  the  hides  of  oxen  or 
seals,  the  felt  of  furred  beasts ;  and  walk 
abroad  a  moving  Rag-screen,  overheaped 
with  shreds  and  tatters  raked  from  the 
Charnel-house  of  Nature,  where  they 
would  have  rotted,  to  rot  on  me  more 
slowly ! "  And  it  must  have  been  after  being 
made  partaker  in  some  similar  scene  that 
he  declared  in  enthusiasm,  "  There  is 
something  great  in  the  moment  when  a 
man  first  strips  himself  of  adventitious 
wrappages  ;  and  sees  indeed  that  he  is 
naked,  and,  as  Swift  has  it,  '  a  forked  strad- 
dling animal  with  bandy  legs  ; '  yet  also  a 

[  204  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

Spirit  and  unutterable  Mystery  of  Mys- 
teries/* 

According  to  the  hour,  the  warmth  of 
the  day,  the  height  of  the  tide,  the  bathers 
vary  in  number  from  fifty  to  five  hundred. 
They  are  of  all  ages  and  of  all  figures  ; 
among  them  some,  by  the  baked  brown- 
ness  of  their  skins,  may  be  distinguished 
as  habitues  of  this  beach ;  they  lie  on  the 
sand,  sunning  themselves  by  the  hour, 
tanning  themselves  all  over  with  a  scru- 
pulous uniformity.  At  one  end  of  the 
beach  three  or  four  play  handball  against 
the  fence;  others  are  jumping  and  run- 
ning; there  are  usually  one  or  two  at- 
tempting complicated  acrobatic  feats.  One 
dignified  old  gentleman  I  once  saw  stand 
unperturbed  for  some  minutes  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  beach,  gravely  performing  with 
his  empty  fists  a  variety  of  Indian  club 
and  dumb-bell  evolutions  ;  and  near  by  a 
stout  person  with  bushy  white  side-whis- 
kers was  making  repeated  efforts  to  touch 
his  toes.    It  speaks  well,  I  think,  for  the 

[  205  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

manners  of  our  men  that  the  most  whim- 
sical of  these  performances  evoked  nothing 
more  than  passing  glances  and  consider- 
ately hidden  smiles.  I  know  of  no  other 
place  where  in  the  interest  of  health  a 
man  may  so  companionably  play  the  fool. 
And  after  he  has  done  that  to  his  heart's 
content,  and  sunned  himself  sufficiently 
on  the  sand,  the  luxury  of  his  swim  out 
into  the  bay  where  a  fleet  of  sailboats  is  at 
anchor,  and  distant  green  islands  with 
gray  buildings  lift  their  heads,  would  be 
considerably  less  if  he  were  clogged  by  a 
bathing  suit.  The  "  return  to  nature  " 
which  has  been  so  much  agitated  of  late, 
and  which  is  recommended  chiefly  —  to 
judge  by  publishers'  prospectuses  —  for  its 
renewal  of  "  red  blood  "  in  the  system,  re- 
quires from  most  of  its  devotees  a  sacrifice 
of  time  and  comfort  and  a  forsaking  of 
civilized  life.  An  afternoon  at  this  quaint 
beach,  where  human  nature  stripped  to 
the  skin  is  primitively  beguiling  itself  in 
sun  and  air  and  sea,  satisfies  my  own  pre- 

[  206  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

adamite  cravings  and  spares  me  the  incon- 
veniences usually  suffered  by  those  who 
respond  to  the  call  of  the  wild. 

It  has  been  a  grief  to  me  that  the  most 
enthusiastic  swimmer  whom  I  know  has 
always  contemned  this  favorite  resort,  — 
a  prejudice  which  I  set  down  partly  to  the 
fact  that  he  is  British  and  an  unbudgeable 
creature  of  habit.  He  fortifies  himself, 
however,  with  argument.  "  When  you 
swim  in  the  ocean,"  he  says,  "  let  it  be  in 
the  ocean,  and  not  in  a  miserable  inclosed 
bay  fringed  by  a  city."  So  every  summer 
afternoon,  rain  or  shine,  he  takes  a  boat 
down  the  harbor,  and  after  an  hour's  sail 
lands  at  a  well-known  beach  that  has  the 
desirable  outlook  upon  unlimited  sea.  I 
accompanied  him  on  one  of  these  excur- 
sions ;  his  fingers  were  fumbling  at  his 
buttons  before  he  left  the  boat.  "  I  '11  be 
waiting  for  you  on  the  beach,"  he  said,  as 
he  shut  me  into  my  compartment  at  the 
bath-house ;  and  though  I  was  expeditious 
in  the  hope  of  denying  him  that  satisfac- 

[  207  ] 


-IX    SWIMMING" 

tion,  I  found  him  not  only  waiting  as  he 
had  predicted,  but  waiting  with  an  air 
of  intolerable  impatience.  There  was  no 
trembling  on  the  brink  for  me  that  day. 
Into  the  water  I  went  perforce,  with  a 
rush  and  a  splash,  close  at  his  heels ;  it  was 
cold,  and  I  pressed  out  at  a  rapid  stroke. 
He  held  his  lead  ;  after  we  had  gone  some 
distance  and  my  teeth  were  chattering,  I 
suggested  that  it  was  perhaps  time  to  turn 
back.  ''  Turn  back  !  I  have  n't  started  yet," 
he  replied  scornfully.  As  he  is  not  young, 
but  an  experienced  scientist  and  philoso- 
pher with  a  full  gray  beard,  and  I  have 
considerably  the  advantage  of  him  in  years, 
I  was  nettled  by  his  answer,  and  resolved 
to  stay  with  him  in  his  folly;  no  doubt 
he  would  soon  be  calling  on  me  to  save 
his  life.  But  at  last  in  those  arctic  cur- 
rents I  surrendered  my  pride ;  *'  I  'm 
going  back,"  I  announced.  **  All  right," 
he  answered,  and  continued  on  into  the 
Atlantic. 

Half  an    hour  later,    when    I   was   all 

[  208  ] 


'^N    SWIMMING" 

dressed  and  waiting,  he  waded  ashore  and 
walked  up  the  sand,  the  brine  dripping 
from  his  gray  beard,  his  arms  pink  and 
ghstening, — not  a  quiver  of  his  frame. 
"  You  do  pretty  well  for  a  citv  swimmer," 
he  said  kindly. 

Even  with  that  concession  from  him  I 
am  aware  that  he  should  be  writing  this 
paper,  and  not  I.  My  only  justification  is 
my  feeling  that  the  inexpert  dabbler  in  an 
art  may  sometimes  bring  to  the  interpret- 
ing of  it  a  keener  zest  of  longing  and  a 
more  ardent  estimate  than  the  past  master 
who  has  penetrated  all  its  mysteries. 

It  seems  somewhat  remarkable  that 
swimming  should  have  had  such  scant  ap- 
preciation in  literature.  The  poets  have 
astonishingly  neglected  it  —  astonishingly, 
I  say,  for  it  supplies  one  of  the  most  sen- 
suous human  experiences.  Byron,  to 
whom,  of  all  writers,  one  would  naturally 
look  for  a  sympathetic  treatment  of  the 
theme,  gives  it  only  a  few  mediocre  verses. 
Clough  has  dealt  with  it  mock-seriously ; 

[   2C9  ] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

Swinburne  has  experimented  with  it,  — 
and  achieved  one  memorable  line,  — 

"The  dreaming  head  and  the  steering  hand." 

For  Shakespeare  there  was  an  opportunity, 

—  in  **  Julius  Caesar," — but  he  ignored 
it.  Homer  might  have  been  eloquent, 
but  with  his  hero  Ulysses  three  days  in 
the  water  and  half  dead,  he  could  not 
enlarge  on  swimming  as  a  pleasure.  Shel- 
ley and  Keats,  poets  of  sensuousness,  make 
no  poem  about  swimming.  Walt  Whit- 
man, though  both  rhapsodist  and  swim- 
mer, was  never  inspired  to  rhapsodize 
on  swimming.  The  most  appreciative 
and  suggestive  words  on  the  subject  have 
been  written  by  Meredith  in  *'  Lord  Or- 
mont  and  his  Aminta,"  in  the  chapter 
entitled  '*A  Marine  Duet."  **  The  swim 
was  a  holiday ;  all  was  new  —  nothing 
came  to  her  as  the  same  old  thing  since 
she  took  her  plunge;   she  had  a  sea-mind 

—  had  left  her  earth-mind  ashore.  The 
swim   .   .   .  passed   up  out    of  happiness, 

[   210  ] 


^'IN    SWIMMING" 

through  the  spheres  of  deUrium,  into  the 
region  where  our  Hfe  is  as  we  would  have 
it  be  :  a  home  holding  the  quiet  of  the 
heavens,  if  but  midway  thither,  and  a 
home  of  delicious  animation  of  the  whole 
frame,  equal  to  wings."  Matey  was  pur- 
suing her.  **  He  had  doubled  the  salt  sea's 
rapture,  —  and  he  had  shackled  its  gift 
of  freedom.  She  turned  to  float,  gather- 
ing her  knees  for  the  funny  sullen  kick." 
There  is  a  true  descriptive  phrase  !  "  Their 
heads  were  water-flowers  that  spoke  at 
ease.  .  .  .  They  swam  silently,  high,  low, 
creatures  of  the  smooth  green  roller.  He 
heard  the  water-song  of  her  swimming." 
But  it  will  not  do  to  extract  sentences 
from  their  setting ;  I  will  make  only  one 
more  quotation.  "  The  pleasure  she  still 
knew"  —  returning  to  shore  —  ''was  a 
recollection  of  the  outward  swim,  when 
she  had  been  privileged  to  cast  away  sex 
with  the  push  from  earth,  as  few  men 
will  believe  that  women,  beautiful  women, 
ever  wish  to  do." 

[211] 


"IN    SWIMMING" 

As  to  the  truth  of  this,  let  some  wo- 
man who  is  a  swimmer  testify  ;  if  it  is 
true,  the  full,  adequate  appreciation  of 
swimming  can  never  be  written  by  a 
man. 


VIII 
BRAWN  AND   CHARACTER 


BRAWN  AND   CHARACTER 

When  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  was  asked 
what  lack  in  life  caused  him  the  keenest 
pain,  he  answered,  "  The  feeling  that  I  'm 
not  strong  enough  to  resent  an  insult 
properly,  —  not  strong  enough  to  knock 
a  man  down." 

With  civilization  at  a  point  where  the 
resort  to  elemental  weapons  is  practically 
obsolete,   it   might   seem   that   there  was 
something   antiquated   and   unreal,    more 
imaginary  than  genuine,  in  this  complaint 
of  the   frail-bodied   Stevenson;    probably 
in  all  his  life,  as  in  the  lives  of  most  gen- 
tlemen nowadays,  he  was  never  confronted 
with  the  alternative  of  knocking  a  man 
down  or  accepting  a  wound  to  his  pride. 
If  the  occasion  ever  arose  and  he  had  to 
charge  to  the  feebleness  of  his  body  his 
failure  to  sustain  his  dignity,  the  recollec- 
tion might  indeed  tinge  him  with  bitter- 

[  215  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

ness ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the 
gentle  and  lovable  Stevenson  argued  from 
an  actual  experience  of  humiliation. 

Yet  it  is  not  alone  the  painful  memo- 
ries or  the  logical  apprehensions  of  ill 
which  awaken  the  most  sensitive  realiza- 
tion of  defencelessness  and  fill  the  soul 
with  the  haunting  dread  of  incompetence. 
From  a  clouded  childhood  such  a  dis- 
trust is  usuallv  derived,  rather  than  from 
the  isolated  blunders  or  failures,  however 
monumental,  of  later  years.  Stevenson,  the 
petted  and  fragile  child  at  home,  went 
finally  to  school ;  and  it  hardly  needs  a 
biographer  to  tell  us  how  the  high-spirited, 
imaginative  boy,  who  liked  to  shine,  met 
with  repression  from  the  stalwart,  obsti- 
nate young  Scots.  In  their  rough  sports 
he  was  never  a  leader  ;  that  was  morti- 
fication enough  to  one  of  his  spirit;  and 
it  was  not  the  full  measure  of  his  mor- 
tification. With  his  imperious  outbursts, 
his  flashing  temper,  his  physical  weakness, 
he    afforded    some    of   them    rare    sport. 

[  2^6  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

His  school-days  were  miserable  to  him, 
and  miserable  school-days  are  likely  to 
affect  permanently  a  man's  outlook.  Per- 
haps not  any  one  bullying  episode  of  which 
he  may  have  been  an  impotent  victim,  not 
any  one  instance  where  he  stood  solitary 
to  one  side,  while  the  school  acclaimed 
their  champion,  remained  to  give  a  special 
vengefulness  to  that  longing  of  his  mature 
years,  "  If  I  were  only  strong  enough  to 
knock  a  man  down!  "  But  the  feeling  of 
inferiority  lingered  in  him  after  he  had 
passed  the  period  when  inferiority  of  that 
particular  kind  ceases  to  be  reckoned  im- 
portant ;  in  this  one  respect  his  standard 
remained  that  of  the  immature  boy. 

Weaker  than  his  fellows  and  high-spir- 
ited, he  came  to  be  reckless  of  such  strength 
as  he  had ;  with  bravado  and  imagination 
he  recompensed  himself  for  the  niggard- 
liness of  nature.  The  weak  who  are  poor- 
spirited  and  without  bravado  do  not  dis- 
guise that  they  are  timorous  or  furtive, 
subservient    or    cringing ;    and    weakness 

[  217  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

does  very  often  impose  poverty  of  spirit. 
In  its  attenuation  there  may  be  a  sharpen- 
ing of  wits  and  hence  a  success  in  life  — 
of  a  kind  — achieved  by  craft  or  dupUcity 
or  deviousness,  and  guarded  by  a  suspi- 
cious vigilance  ;  the  man  of  spirit  scorns  a 
success  so  won  and  so  preserved.  If,  like 
Stevenson,  he  was  born  a  weakling,  his 
path  is  indeed  laborious  and  must  be  hewn 
out  of  the  very  rock  of  adversity. 

But  the  man  of  great  bodily  vigor,  who 
in  his  boyhood  was  of  conspicuous  strength 
among  his  fellows, —  how  does  he  ever 
fail  of  leadership  and  eminence  in  what- 
ever career  he  chooses  ?  The  early  self- 
confidence  that  he  has  developed  must  be 
tremendous,  —  the  discovery  that  in  all  the 
affairs  of  boyhood  which  are  truly  ac- 
counted of  moment  he  is  without  a  peer, 
—  able  to  overthrow  any  one  in  wrestling, 
to  swim  longer,  to  run  faster,  to  bat  a 
ball  farther  than  any  of  his  comrades,  — 
this  gradual  unfolding  of  his  powers  must 
cause  such  a  youth  to  tread  the  earth  with 

[  2^8  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

a  conscious  greatness.  Why  should  he  ever 
be  afraid  ?  and  what  is  it  but  fear  that 
withholds  any  of  us  from  large  achieve- 
ment ?  His  imagination  does  not  implant 
in  him  doubt  and  distrust,  his  mediocre 
rank  at  school  and  his  dulness  at  his  books 
cause  him  no  misgivings,  for  at  his  time 
of  life  excellence  in  these  matters  is  es- 
teemed parrotlike,  and  distinction  in  them 
is  contemptuously  awarded  to  the  weak. 
It  might  be  expected  that  the  self-confi- 
dence acquired  in  early  years  through  a 
mastery  of  all  one's  contemporaries  could 
never  quite  forsake  the  most  unlucky ;  that 
a  man  with  such  a  history  would  rise  from 
each  overthrow  stronger,  like  Antaeus,  for 
having  touched  the  earth,  —  with  courage 
undiminished  and  some  gain  in  wisdom. 
Yet  for  every  Antaeus  there  is  perhaps  also 
a  Goliath.  Whence  to  these  unhappy 
giants  come  their  Davids  ? 

Only  part  of  the  truth  may  be  furnished 
by  the  most  obvious  reply,  —  that  a  man 
whose  principal  regard  has  been  to  main- 

[  219  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

tain  physical  supremacy  over  his  fellows 
finds  himself  less  well  equipped  for  the 
struggle  as  it  becomes  less  and  less  man- 
ual. Accustomed  to  a  rudimentary  enforce- 
ment of  his  boyish  personality,  he  often  has 
no  great  readiness  in  adapting  himself  to 
the  subtler  methods  employed  by  the  aging 
world.  The  weaker  and  more  studious 
among  his  contemporaries  are  able  now  to 
match  craft  and  knowledge  against  his 
ignorance,  —  and  he  can  no  longer  retal- 
iate by  a  triumphant  demonstration  of  his 
superior  weight. 

Such  an  attempt  to  account  for  the 
clenching  of  the  humble  clerical  pen  in  the 
fist,  discouraged  at  forty,  that  had  been  re- 
doubtable at  fifteen,  for  the  languid  dulness 
of  the  eye  that  once  had  overawed  a  little 
world,  for  the  sluggish  gait  and  the  shabby 
dress  of  him  who  in  days  past  had  stepped 
alert  with  the  champion's  zest  in  life,  will 
perhaps  be  rejected  by  the  philosopher  as 
inadequate  —  at  least  as  comprehended  in 
a  larger  cause.    Nowadays  lack  of  prepa- 

[   220  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

ration  does  not  sufficiently  explain  failure  ; 
the  most  ill-equipped  business  man  or  pro- 
fessional man,  if  he  has  a  genial  assertive- 
ness  and  a  willingness  to  represent  shoddy 
wares  and  spurious  talents  as  genuine,  need 
not  despair  of  attaining  a  meretricious 
success.  Self-confidence  is  older  brother 
to  an  easy  conscience  and  a  tendency  to 
''bluff;  "  and  these  imply  a  facility  in 
amassing  riches.  Yet  almost  daily  I  pass  on 
the  street  a  giant  of  sixteen  stone  who 
can  still  put  the  shot  and  throw  the  ham- 
mer, who  in  figure  and  bearing  seems  de- 
signed for  one  of  life's  larger  destinies,  and 
who  would  gladly  embrace  success,  how- 
ever ignoble,  instead  of  posing  for  a  pit- 
tance as  an  artist's  model. 

Young  men  and  boys  of  great  bodily 
strength  are  usually  more  intent  on  exer- 
cising their  power  than  on  accomplishing 
a  purpose.  In  the  habit  of  mind  and  ac- 
tion so  engendered  lies  the  great  impedi- 
ment which  in  after  life  may  balk  them 
of  the  fruits  promised  by  their  early  vic- 

[    221    ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

torious  self-confidence.  The  easy  display 
of  their  prowess  wins  them  such  admiring 
regard  that  achievement  seems  superfluous 
and  unprofitable;  they  attain  to  eminence 
by  methods  which  do  not  tax  their  eflx)rt 
and  which  are  as  ephemeral  as  play.  Mean- 
while, their  more  feebly  constituted  con- 
temporaries, seeking  for  distinction,  have 
to  occupy  themselves  with  less  spectacular 
action  ;  the  office,  the  library,  and  the  lab- 
oratory claim  increasingly  the  interest  of 
those  who  are  ambitious  ;  and  already  pur- 
pose is  shaping  itself  in  their  minds, — 
purpose  of  accomplishment  and  not  mere 
purpose  of  competition  ;  books  are  germi- 
nating, steam  engines  and  electric  motors 
are  being  devised,  law  and  medicine  and 
architecture  have  begun  to  awaken  some 
constructive  thought.  Yet  building,  how- 
ever hopefully,  for  the  future,  they  envy 
in  their  cloistered  preparation  the  wanton 
vigor  of  the  strong.  They  are  learning 
to  husband  and  concentrate  their  energy 
while  their  large-framed   friends  are  liv- 

[    222   ] 


BRAWX    AND    CHARACTER 

ing  from  day  to  day  in  a  sort  of  opulent 
diffusion. 

The  tendency  of  the  strong  is  not  so 
much  to  work  definitely  towards  some 
purpose  as  to  keep  constantly  testing  their 
strength  in  whatever  competition  offers; 
variety  and  excitement  are  what  in  their 
vitality  they  crave,  and  so  long  as  they 
may  be  active  they  care  little  what  monu- 
ment they  leave  behind  them.  For  a  few 
brilliant  exploits  there  is  much  waste  and 
much  triviality ;  they  cast  about  contin- 
ually to  prevail  over  some  new  person  or 
some  new  obstacle  without  regard  for  the 
intrinsic  value  of  the  struggle.  Consist- 
ency and  conviction  are  virtues  on  which 
they  seldom  make  a  stand ;  erratic  live- 
liness often  speeds  them  with  warring  im- 
pulses along  a  primrose  path. 

A  classmate  of  mine  at  school  excelled 
in  strength  nearly  all  his  fellows.  His 
strength  indeed  possessed  him  as  it  were 
a  devil.  He  was  as  willing  to  exhibit  it  bv 
hectoring  the   weak  as  by   tussling   with 

[  ^u  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

those  who  could  put  up  a  defence.  It  is 
fallacious  to  assert  that  the  bully  is  always 
a  coward.  This  boy  was  in  many  respects 
an  egregious  bully,  but  he  was  without  fear. 
I  think  that  in  his  roughness  with  the 
smaller  boys  he  was  also  without  malice, 
without  any  particularly  cruel  satisfac- 
tion in  causing  them  humiliation  and  pain. 
It  was  merely,  I  believe,  that  he  had  an  ex- 
cess of  animal  energy  which  must  always 
be  expressing  itself,  and  the  added  human 
desire  for  seeing  some  visible  response  to 
its  expression. 

There  came  into  the  school  a**  new 
boy," — timorous,  girlish,  and  pious, — 
one  who,  with  a  devoted  mother  and  sis- 
ters, had  probably  led  a  too  sequestered 
life.  Young  Hercules  cut  his  finger  one 
day  and  swore;  and  the  new  boy,  who  was 
close  by,  turned  his  back  and  crossed  him- 
self. Unfortunately  Hercules  detected  him 
in  this ;  thenceforth,  whenever  he  saw  the 
new  boy  he  would  emit  the  most  unwar- 
rantable and  shocking  oaths,  and  call  others 

[  224  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

to  witness  the  effect.  Finally,  this  diversion 
became  so  entertaining  to  a  number  that 
boys  who  had  never  adopted  profanity 
resorted  to  it  for  the  sole  purpose  of  an- 
noying their  new  friend ;  and  a  favorite 
amusement  was  for  half  a  dozen  to  sur- 
round him  and  then  swear  busily  about 
the  circle  in  order  to  see  him  turn  and  turn 
and  make  without  concealment  —  as  in- 
deed he  was  courageous  enough  to  do  — 
his  devotional,  deprecating  sign.  The  per- 
secution of  him  did  not,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
stop  with  this ;  and  there  was  some  abuse 
of  strength  on  the  part  of  Hercules  which, 
it  it  was  not  very  brutal,  must  measurably 
have  saddened  the  newcomer's  life. 

But  one  night  Hercules  came  up  when 
another  fellow — about  as  strong  as  him- 
self—  was  endeavoring  to  put  the  '*  new 
kid  "  into  a  snowdrift.  And  then  the  rest 
of  us  were  startled.  ''Stop  that!"  cried 
Hercules,  and  rushed  to  the  rescue.  "  You 
let  that  boy  alone !  "  He  seized  the  jocular 
bullv  bv  the  collar  and  swung  him  round; 

[  2^5  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

the  intended  victim  wriggled  free,  and  after 
a  brief  struggle  the  two  strong  boys  fell 
into  the  snowdrift,  with  Hercules  on  top. 
The  other  was  his  friend,  but  there  had 
been  no  playfulness  in  the  assault.  Neither, 
I  suppose,  had  there  been  much  chivalry. 
At  least  I  cannot  say  that  the  new  boy 
was  thenceforth  emancipated  from  the  per- 
secution of  Hercules  or  could  depend  upon 
his  championship  ;  and  I  imagine  it  was 
simply  the  sudden  raging  need  of  exercis- 
ing his  strength  against  some  one  that 
had  driven  him  to  intervene. 

Poor  Hercules  !  He  was  of  the  kin  of 
Goliath  rather  than  of  Antaeus.  He  went 
about  challenging  the  world  in  his  restless 
energy  of  the  moment ;  always  he  was  de- 
manding some  fresh  test  for  what  was  in 
him  of  the  elemental  man  ;  always  he  was 
rebellious,  irresponsible,  and  roaming.  He 
met  his  death  in  an  act  of  futile  gallantry. 
His  excess  of  physical  strength  and  the 
challenging  spirit  with  which  it  imbued 
him  were  surely  his  undoing. 

[  "6] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

Sam  Parks,  the  labor  leader  and  felon, 
is  not  yet  forgotten.  He  came  to  America 
at  the  age  of  twenty,  an  illiterate  Irishman, 
strong,  domineering,  and  prone  to  use  his 
fists.  In  the  lumber  camps  of  Canada 
and  Minnesota  he  made  a  reputation  as  a 
''  slugger."  When  he  took  up  the  trade 
of  an  ironworker,  his  methods  of  assert- 
ing himself  continued  as  drastic  as  in  the 
lumber  camps.  '*  He  cleaned  out  champion 
after  champion,"  says  a  newspaper  bio- 
graphy of  him.  ''  He  was  a  natural  born 
tyrant.  A  man  who  would  n't  bend  to  his 
will  got  slugged." 

In  New  York  there  were  eleven  differ- 
ent unions  of  ironworkers.  '*  Parks  joined 
as  many  of  them  as  he  could  and  then 
proceeded  to  consolidate  them  all.  .  .  . 
With  all  the  unions  merged  into  one,  Parks 
became  a  dictator.  He  encountered  rival 
after  rival,  but  thrust  all  aside.  His  favor- 
ite weapons  were  his  fists.  He  surrounded 
himself  with  a  gang  of  indolent  ironwork- 
ers, the  thugs  of  the  trade.    Opponents  of 

[  227  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

Parks  were  simply  slugged.  Ironworkers 
who  refused  to  strike  at  his  order  were 
waylaid  and  beaten.  ...  He  extorted 
money  from  employers,  stopped  work 
when  and  where  he  pleased,  started  it 
again  as  he  liked,  made  men  of  wealth 
get  down  on  their  knees  to  him.  .  .  .  The 
idea  that  his  power  could  be  broken  never 
occurred  to  Parks  and  his  friends.  Parks 
was  warned,  but,  drunk  with  power,  he 
ignored  the  warning.  He  knocked  one  ad- 
viser flat  on  his  back  for  presuming  to  sug- 
gest that  he  go  slow.  He  forced  his  way 
into  the  presence  of  employers,  whether 
they  wanted  to  see  him  or  not,  cursed 
them,  laid  down  the  law  to  them,  and 
enforced  his  wishes." 

And  then,  in  the  height  of  his  power, 
this  bully  and  *'  grafter  "  was  haled  away 
to  prison.  Brute  strength  and  the  over- 
weening confidence  that  flowed  from  it 
and  the  lust  for  power  need  not  have 
wrecked  his  career,  though  they  might 
have  made  it  unenviable.    The  incessant 

[  228  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

egotistical  desire  to  prove  himself  always 
the  better  man,  without  the  constraint  of 
a  moral  issue  or  a  worthy  creative  purpose, 
was  that  which  overthrew  Sam  Parks,  and 
it  was  a  direct  consequence  of  his  strength. 
And  there  are  many  educated  men  who 
have  the  moral  sense  that  he  lacked,  but 
who  perhaps  have  no  more  definite  object 
than  he  —  no  other  aim  than  always  to  be 
powerful,  as  by  reason  of  their  strength  in 
younger  days  they  had  been  ;  and  these 
men  may  go  astray,  not  so  deplorably  as 
he,  yet  to  an  end  of  futility  because  of 
their  eagerness  always  to  match  themselves 
against  others,  and  their  belief  that  com- 
petition vindicates  itself  and  implies  pro- 
gress and  productive  achievement. 

The  competitive  instinct  is  the  strongest 
of  all  the  instincts  of  a  healthy  boy.  He 
wishes  to  test  himself  in  relation  to  the 
other  boys  of  his  acquaintance ;  he  must 
be  forever  pitting  his  strength  and  daring 
and  endurance  against  theirs.  This  keen- 
ness to  strive  and  to  excel  is  the  starting- 

[  229  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

point  for  all  useful  masculine  develop- 
ment ;  but  it  is  a  stage  in  development 
that  must  be  outgrown.  If  it  continues 
the  ruling  passion  after  manhood,  it  is  to 
the  man's  detriment.  For  when  the  boy 
grows  into  the  man,  it  is  time  that  he 
should  have  erected  in  his  mind  his  own 
standard,  and  that  henceforth  he  should 
measure  himself  in  comparison  with  that 
alone,  and  not  with  the  stature  of  other 
men.  One  need  never  outgrow  the  sense 
of  satisfaction  in  getting  the  better  of  a 
difficulty  ;  but  the  mere  sighting  of  a  dif- 
ficulty on  the  horizon  inflames  none  but 
the  unsettled  and  drifting  with  the  desire 
for  conquest. 

It  is  soaring  into  Utopian  realms  to 
assert  that  one  should  never  have  a  sense 
of  satisfaction  in  getting  the  better  of  an- 
other man  ;  but  it  is  no  absurdly  lofty  or 
unpractical  notion  that  he  w^ho  finds  in 
such  achievement  a  sufficient  end  and 
cause  for  labor  may  strive  to  no  purpose, 
even  though  his  days  are  full   of  contest 

[  230  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

and  victory.  At  the  risk  of  seeming  to 
hold  a  narrowly  ascetic  doctrine,  I  would 
assail  that  common  phrase,  "the  game 
of  life."  In  its  suggestion  of  emulation, 
light-hearted  or  grim  according  as  one's 
game  is  tennis  or  football,  it  is  misleading. 
All  of  us  have  our  human  adversaries  who 
are  to  be  thwarted ;  their  defeat,  however, 
is  an  incident,  not  our  chief  concern.  Our 
affair  is  the  discharge  of  the  duties  where- 
with our  involuntary  entrance  into  life 
has  burdened  us,  and  the  fulfilment  of 
that  purpose  to  which  each  of  us  in  his 
imagination  is  kindled  ;  and  so  far  as  we 
are  animated  only  by  the  competitive 
spirit  of  the  game  we  miss  the  point  of 
living.  Our  legitimate  pleasure  in  over- 
coming need  be  none  the  less  because  it  is 
subordinated  to  the  pleasure  of  achieving 
or  creating.  Our  fiery  zeal  for  conquest 
need  not  be  extinguished  simply  because 
it  is  held  under  a  more  grave  constraint. 

The  insatiate  appetite  for  competition 
begets  in  a  man  a  corroding  egotism.    In    » 

[  231  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

the  prideful  desire  to  display  one's  self  at 
the  expense  of  others,  to  win  the  plaudits 
and  the  prize,  one  grows  impatient  of  all 
but  the  showy  hours.  From  the  repeated 
excursions  to  match  one's  strength  gal- 
lantly in  contest,  one  returns  with  reluct- 
ance to  the  intervals  of  obscurity  in  which 
most  of  the  genuine  and  permanently  pro- 
ductive work  is  done.  The  further  test- 
ing and  demonstration  of  one's  powers 
before  an  audience  becomes  a  more  im- 
perative desire ;  the  impulse  to  perform 
patient  creative  labor  languishes. 

They  who  have  come  victorious  through 
the  competitions  of  youth  will  naturally 
be  those  most  ardent  to  pursue  life  as  a 
game,  for  in  the  conduct  of  a  game  they 
are  accustomed  to  success.  And  in  them 
egotism  will  most  dangerously  thrive.  It 
will  not  be  morbid  and  introspective,  like 
that  of  the  invalid ;  it  will  not  be  so  par- 
alyzing to  the  energies  ;  but  it  will  lead 
to  misdirected  and  scattered  effort.  It  will 
be  egotism  of  the  sort  that  urges  a  man  to 

[  232  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

compete  with  others  in  excesses,  to  earn 
a  reputation  for  his  ability  to  outstay  his 
comrades  in  a  carousal,  and  be  fit  and 
ready  for  work  at  the  usual  hour  the  next 
morning.  He  will  become  the  egotist 
who  squanders  himself  in  unessential  seek- 
ing and  arrogant  assertion,  who  seizes 
the  office  and  ignores  the  duty,  who  is  the 
bandit  in  business  and  the  pillar  in  the 
church. 

It  would  not  be  fair  to  predicate  of  all 
such  egotists  an  athletic  and  victorious 
boyhood,  any  more  than  to  doom  all  ath- 
letes to  so  degenerate  a  fate.  At  the  same 
time  the  descent  of  the  hero  is  easy,  — 
especially  of  the  premature  and  precocious 
hero.  Temptation  besets  him  insidiously, 
for  the  egotism  of  the  youth  who  by  rea- 
son of  his  physical  powers  lords  it  over 
his  fellows  is  by  no  means  an  unattractive 
quality  and  subject  to  rebuke.  It  is  very 
different  from  that  into  which  it  may  lure 
him  in  later  years.  There  are  indeed  few 
traits  more  charming  than  the  unsophisti- 

[  233  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

cated  egotism  of  the  athlete;  and  here 
there  need  be  no  reservations,  —  the  pro- 
fessional athlete  of  mature  years  may  be  in- 
cluded as  well  as  the  callow  amateur  boy. 
By  comparison,  the  egotism  of  the  artist 
or  the  poet,  which  is  commonly  accepted 
as  the  most  monstrous,  is  but  a  shrinking 
modesty.  The  poet  or  the  artist  is  quite 
objective  in  valuing  himself;  it  is  indeed 
himself  only  as  a  creator  that  compels  his 
admiration  and  reverence.  But  the  sub- 
jection of  the  athlete  to  his  own  person  is 
absolute;  he  admires  and  reverences  him- 
self as  a  creature !  The  care  with  which 
he  considers  his  diet,  the  attentiveness  with 
which  he  grooms  his  body,  the  absorbed  in- 
terest that  he  gives  to  all  details  of  breath- 
ing and  sleeping  and  exercising  are,  in 
comparison  with  his  thoughtlessness  about 
all  that  lies  beyond,  touchingand  ludicrous; 
the  very  simplicity  of  him  in  his  engrossed 
self-study  wins  the  smiling  observer.  And 
if  he  is  a  good-hearted  boy  or  man,  as 
one  so  healthy  and  so  single-minded  usu- 

[  234  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

ally  is,  and  is  responsive  to  the  admiration 
of  others  as  well  as  of  himself,  he  confers 
much  happiness.  No  doubt  innumerably 
more  persons  would  choose  to  grasp  the 
hand  of  John  L.  Sullivan  than  that  of 
George  Meredith;  and  the  day  of  this  op- 
portunity would  be  to  them  a  memorable 
one  and  innocently  bright  with  bliss. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  pleasing  and 
ample   egotism   of  the   athlete,   I   would 
quote    from    a   newspaper    account   of   a 
friendly  visit  once  paid  by  a  famous  pugil- 
ist to  the  most  famous  of  all  pugilists  in 
our  generation.    Robert  Fitzsimmons  had 
been  informed  that  John  L.  Sullivan  was 
ill ;   whereupon  he  donned  ''  a  neat  fitting 
frock  coat  and  a  glittering  tall  hat,"  and 
drove  in  a  carriage  to  see  him.    He  found 
him  in  bed  ;   "  the  once  mighty  gladiator 
had  lost  all  of  his  old-time  vim  and  vigor. 
''  The  two  great  athletes  were  visibly 
affected.     Sullivan   raised   himself  on   his 
elbow  and  looked  steadily  at  Fitz  for  some 
few  seconds.    '  How  are  you,  John  ? '  said 

[  235  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

Fitz  when  the  big  fellow  showed  signs 
of  relaxing  his  vice-like  grip." 

John  was  depressed.  **  *  It  's  Baden 
Springs,  Hot  Springs,  or  some  other  sul- 
phur bath  for  me.  I  never  did  believe 
much  in  medicine.  This  world  is  all  a 
"con"  any  way.  Why,  they  talk  about 
religion  and  heaven  and  hell.  What  do 
they  know  about  heaven  and  hell  ?  I  think 
when  a  guy  croaks  he  just  dies  and  that's 
all  there  is  to  him.  They  bury  some  of 
them,  but  they  won't  plant  me.  When  I 
go,'  the  big  fellow  faltered,  *  they  '11  burn 
me.  Nothin'  left  but  your  ashes,  and  each 
of  your  friends  can  have  some  of  you  to 
remember  you  by.  Let  them  burn  you 
up  when  you  're  all  in.  It  's  the  proper 
thing.'  " 

Fitzsimmons  dissented  from  this  view, 
and  in  his  warm-hearted,  optimistic  way 
set  about  cheering  up  his  dejected  friend. 
He  recalled  their  exploits  and  triumphs  in 
the  prize  ring ;  and  Sullivan  was  soon  in 
a  happier  frame  of  mind.    Oddly  enough, 

[  236  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

in  this  friendly  call  upon  a  sick  man,  Fitz- 
simmons  was  accompanied  by  a  newspaper 
reporter  and  a  photographer,  —  one  of 
those  chance  occurrences  which  enrich 
the  world.  ''Sullivan  noticed  the  camera 
which  the  photographer  carried,  and  asked 
what  it  was  for."  Unsuspicious  and  un- 
worldly old  man  !  *'  He  was  told  that  the 
newspaper  hoped  to  get  a  photograph  of 
him  and  Fitz  as  they  met,  but  that  as  he 
was  abed  of  course  such  a  thing  was  im- 
possible. 

*'  *  Impossible  !  No,  I  guess  not,  my  boy. 
If  there's  any  people  I  like  to  oblige,  it 's 
the  newspaper  fellows.  They  will  do  more 
good  for  a  man  than  all  the  preachers  in 
creation.'  " 

Fitzsimmons  acquiesced.  "  And  then 
the  great  John  L.  lifted  himself  to  a  sitting 
position  and  put  his  legs  outside  the  bed. 

"That  was  the  most  pathetic  incident 
of  the  visit.  With  fatherly  care  Bob  Fitz- 
simmons placed  his  great  right  arm  behind 
Sullivan's  broad  back  and  held  him  com- 

[  237  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

fortably  while  the  latter  arranged  himself. 
When  everything  was  apparently  ready, 
Fitz  glanced  down  and  noticed  that  a  part 
of  Sullivan's  legs  were  uncovered,  and  the 
picture-taking  operation  had  to  be  post- 
poned until  the  sympathetic  Fitz  had 
wrapped  him  carefully  in  the  clothes.  It 
was  touching." 

Of  course  it  waSc  And  if  the  ingenuous 
description  fails  to  bring  appropriate  tears 
to  the  reader's  eyes,  it  must  at  least  reveal 
to  him  the  simple  charm  of  an  egotism  to 
which  a  reporter  brings  a  more  stimulating 
message  than  a  preacher,  and  a  venture- 
some photographer  a  more  healing  medi- 
cine than  a  physician.  But  transplant  that 
egotism  ;  let  it  inhabit  the  soul  of  a  cler- 
gyman, and  where  would  be  its  simple 
charm  ? 

In  **Fistiana,"  a  volume  belonging  to 
the  last  century,  there  is  a  chapter  entitled 
'*  Patriotic  and  Humane  Character  of  the 
Boxing  Fraternity."  It  is,  no  doubt,  a 
tribute  well  deserved.    ''To  the  credit  of 

[  ^38  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

the  professors  of  boxing  they  were  never 
*  backward  in  coming  forward '  to  aid  the 
work  of  charity,  or  to  answer  those  ap- 
peals to  pubHc  sympathy  which  the  rav- 
ages of  war,  the  visitations  of  Providence, 
the  distresses  of  trade  and  commerce,  or 
the  afflictions  of  private  calamity  fre- 
quently excited."  Among  the  objects  of 
their  generous  assistance  are  mentioned 
''  the  starving  Irish,  the  British  prisoners  in 
France,  the  Portuguese  unfortunates,  the 
suffering  families  of  the  heroes  who  had 
fallen  and  bled  on  the  plains  of  Waterloo, 
the  famishing  weavers.  .  .  .  The  gener- 
ous spirit  which  warmed  the  heart  of  a 
true  British  boxer  shone  forth  with  its 
sterling  brilliancy;  all  selfishness  was  set 
aside ;  and  no  sooner  was  the  standard  of 
charity  unfurled  than  every  man  who  could 
wield  a  fist,  from  the  oldest  veteran  to 
the  youngest  practitioner,  rushed  forward, 
anxious  and  ardent  to  evince  the  feelings 
of  his  soul  and  to  lend  his  hand  in  the 
work  of  benevolence." 

[  239  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

The  reader  of  such  a  panegyric  may 
indulge  a  brief  regret  that  they  who  in 
youth  devote  themselves  with  success  to 
athletics  ever  turn  their  attention  to  other 
matters.  Only  by  continuing  in  that  sim- 
ple and  healthful  occupation  may  they 
preserve  untarnished  the  special  charm 
which  clings  to  heroes,  the  special  ego- 
tism which  is  without  offence.  The  Presi- 
dent of  our  country  is  favorably  known 
under  an  informal  appellation  ;  but  even 
the  most  genial  employment  of  that  name 
diffuses  no  such  affectionate  intimacy  and 
regard  as  are  embraced  in  the  variety  of 
pet  terms  for  a  champion, —  whether  he 
is  **old  John,"  ''  John  L.,"  and  **  Sully," 
or**  Bob  "and  **  Fitz."  And  had  these 
champions  taken  into  any  other  pursuit 
the  characteristics  which  have  endeared 
them  to  the  world,  —  the  same  childlike 
and  blatant  egotism,  the  same  sterile  spirit 
of  competition,  —  how  little  human  kind- 
liness and  popularity  would  they  have 
enjoyed! 

[  240  ] 


BRAWN    AND    CHARACTER 

It  gratifies  some  of  us  to  be  pessimistic 
about  brawn.  The  theory  pleases  us  that 
to  be  conspicuously  strong  in  youth  is  to 
be  exposed  to  a  temptation  which  lesser 
boys  are  spared,  —  a  temptation  to  go 
through  life  competing  instead  of  achiev- 
ing. It  is  true  that  some  of  this  competi- 
tion will  result  in  achievement ;  it  is  true 
that  achievement  never  results  except  from 
competition  ;  but  it  is  not  debatable  that 
he  will  go  farthest  and  achieve  most  whose 
eye  is  upon  the  work  alone,  who  rejoices 
in  the  contest  only  as  an  incident  of  work, 
not  as  a  matter  memorable  in  itself.  Only 
in  that  spirit  does  one  come  through  un- 
dismayed, eager  to  press  on,  indifferent  to 
the  complacent  backward  look.  Those 
men  of  brawn  and  sinew  at  whom  we 
gazed  spellbound  in  our  earlier  years,  — 
perhaps  it  is  harder  for  them  to  attain  to 
this  spirit  than  it  was  for  Stevenson. 


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